Phantom Pain
by Mac Gustah
Summary: When a forerunner signal from a moon on the frontier is detected, the UNSC and the USC send a joint strikeforce to investegate before covenant remnant forces show up. Follow the story of the UNSC William of Orange and the USC Unbending Justice when they are thrown into a galaxy far far away. Disclaimer: I do not own Halo or Star Wars.
1. Chapter 1: Departure

**Welcome to the new and improved first chapter of Phantom Pain! I decided to come back to the beginning and make it more attractive to new readers and because I just felt like it. It's not a big increase of words, but I have changed a few things that seemed a little stupid or OP when I looked back at it.**

**I will also be accepting reader submitted content (OCs, vehicles, etc. No Spartans, though. I already have plans for that).**

**I hope you enjoy and not that I am in no case an expert in the SW or Halo lore. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars or Halo.**

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~Chapter 1: Departure~

Andrew Hallsson, captain of the brand new Quick Response and Exploration Marathon II-class Heavy cruiser dubbed UNSC _William of Orange_, was staring out into the blackness of space through one of the large windows on the bridge of his vessel. _We have come so far. We survived so much and still we have no idea what lies beyond the Orion Frontier._

The young captain was shaken out of that train of thought when his communications officer called out to him. "Sir, we're being hailed by the USC _Unbending Justice_. Do you want it on the big screen?"

"No, officer Miles, just put it on my personal screen." He answered with a calm voice, barely able to keep his excitement at bay before a large holoscreen popped to life, showing a reptilian alien clad entirely in gold tinted armour with the exception of a helmetless head and a single red shoulder piece.

"Captain Hallsson," A deep, feminine voice came over the speakers and he couldn't keep a grin from splitting his trimmed beard in two. ", it is good to see you are well." He could hear the smile in her voice.

"The same, Shipmistress Mantakrea. Am I right to assume the _Unbending Justice_ is ready for departure?"

"Yes, we are fully fuelled and stocked on provisions. Me, my crew and my ship are ready to accompany you on this great journey." She said, chuckling a bit at her own joke, and Andrew couldn't help but laugh a little too. People from before their generation would have likely found such humour highly offensive, but to them it was a simple jab between life-long friends.

They had met on their first days of school, on one of the mixed-race colonies founded some twenty years after the war. Some of the older kids had been bullying him until Kiyo' intimidated them so much (actually punching one of them in the face) that the bullies had left him alone ever since. Their parents were part of the CDF, pretty high ranked, actually, and often met outside work after finding out their children had become friends.

They had sort of lost contact after going to Earth and Sangheilios respectively for officer training, so Andrew was happily surprised she and her ship were coming with him.

"As are we. I'm just waiting for last minute checks from engineering and the we'll be ready to go." He said as he scratched his short beard, something that seemed to amuse the Shipmistress.

"I do not understand why you human males seem so adamant about growing facial hair. Does it not get in the way while eating?" She said in good fun.

Andrew raised a sceptical eyebrow, "Says the alien with a split chin."

"Touché, Hallsson." She chuckled.

"Been keeping up with human speech, have you now?"

"There is little choice when you grow up on a mixed race colony. I don't see you using the Sangheili or Unggoy language, though."

He was about to retort something about poetical bullshit in Sangheili language when a soft ding notified him that engineering was finally finished checking the new Dwarf Star-class reactor. It was basically a pair of reactors capable of generating the same amount of power as a Red Dwarf could.

"I have to go now. It's been great talking to you, Kiyo'." The young captain said as he crossed his right arm over his chest, forming a fist over his heart in a Sangheili salute.

Kiyo' saluted back and sent him one more four-mandibled smile before the connection was cut.

"Helm, disengage docking clamps." He felt the ship shudder as it disconnected from the station in orbit of Reach. "Set a course for the RV point. Lieutenant O'Malley, is the_ Unbending Justice_ following?"

"Aye sir, she should be coming up on our starboard in three, two, one… there she is." The Irish officer said as the dark blue shape of a CCS-class battlecruiser flew several tens of kilometres to their right.

The CCS was larger than his own heavily upgraded Marathon II. With its 1,782 meters it was a good 200 meters longer than his own ship and sported plasma torpedoes, plasma turrets, pulse laser turrets and two energy projectors.

Suddenly a green glow came from the pedestal next to in and the hologram of a man wearing a long, black woollen coat, a top hat and a walking cane like a true English gentleman from the 19th century would wear appeared. "Well, Andrew, chap, will we finally be off now?" the ship's green tinted artificial intelligence said, English accent clear in his voice.

"Indeed Edward, exited?" Andrew said, smiling at the 'smart' AI's enthusiasm.

"Of course! Playing eight-dimensional chess with the huragok does get kind of boring after a while. In fact I am playing 759 games of solitaire right now. And I just won."

Suddenly the comms crackled to life., *This is Reach space traffic control to the UNSC _William of Orange_, you have permission for joint slipspace jump with the USC _Unbending Justice_. Please follow the flight path to the designated coordinates for jump. How copy?*

The comms officer answered for Hallsson as the bridge crew went to work like a well-oiled machine, setting the hulk of metal and technology in motion. "We copy, traffic control. Proceeding to designated coordinates for slipspace jump. Receiving flight path. Transmitting codes… now."

*Codes received. Good luck out there, Reach control out.*

As soon as the transmission cut out two swirling blue portals appeared in front of the cruisers and with a grace not expected from such massive ships, they glided into the seven dimensions of slipspace.

* * *

**Two weeks later,  
****0634 hours earth time**

As the young captain approached the door to the labs he noticed that the ODST guards he had stationed there were silently conversing with a pair of Sangheili bridge guards. _Kiyo' must've already arrived then._

His Sangheili friend and colleague was on board his ship because the eggheads had finally found out what the Forerunner device they had taken from the ruins did. Kiyo' had personally asked to see a live demonstration. It was after all not often you got to see actual forerunner technology in action.

As soon as he neared the door all four of the ODSTs (the rookies from each squad) shot into attention and saluted. "Sir," a voice called from one of the ODST, "The Shipmistress has already arrived and is waiting for you inside."

The captain shot a look towards the large Alien guards and raised an eyebrow at the private. "You don't say, private…"

"Gus Swanson, sir, sorry." The ODST seemed slightly flustered. Well, as flustered as a Helljumper could get, at least.

"Don't worry. So, fresh out of the Mars training camp, I see?"

Swanson seemed to relax a bit, "Yes sir, this is my first deployment on a ship this size."

"Ah, has the _William of Orange _been to your liking then? I trust… Gamma has been treating you well?" he asked, quickly looking at the emblem on the trooper's shoulder.

"Certainly, sir."

"It's been good talking to you, Swanson, but I have got an appointment with a certain Shipmistress. Good day." The troopers and bridge guards saluted in their respective ways as he passed them into the laboratory of doctor Henry Albert.

He saw Kiyo' standing a little to the side and quickly walked over to her, getting ready for one of her bone-crushing hugs. "G-hmph. Ow, my ribs, my ribs." She quickly let him go, sending him a sheepish smile.

"It is good to see you again face-to-face, brother. It has been too long."

"Indeed it has, sister. How long has it been, seven years now?" he replied.

"Yes, that would be about right. Andy, I'm sorry I couldn't be there after what happened to the Chernarus." She said sadly.

"Don't worry, Kiyo', I get that you couldn't just leave on an escort mission that important."

The three civilian scientists all looked up at the strange show of affection before going back to work. A fourth scientist, a balding man with a little bit of brown hair left on his head and a pristine white lab coat on coughed silently to get their attention up, "Ah, captain, now that you are here, we can start our demonstration."

The captain nodded, "By all means, dr. Ablert, show me what you've accomplished."

"As you see, we have connected two cables to the device, one for a positive charge and one for a negative charge. When we send a positive charge in to the device, this happens." He flicked a switch and a small slipspace portal about the size of a football appeared above the forerunner relic. "We have found what the Forerunners called pocket dimensions."

Henry reached into the portal and pulled out a steaming cup of coffee. "I put this in here three hours ago. As you can see it is harmless to the human body and keeps hot and cold things the same temperature. We tried putting a watch in there to see if time flowed differently and I now owe colonel Deralioux a new one. Needless to say, this will revolutionise storage and logistics."

He took a sip of the coffee and set it down on the table next to him. "Dr. Albert! Power levels are increasing to dangerous levels! I can't shut it off!" Items started flying around the room erratically, barely missing the scientists and the captain and Shipmistress.

"Give it a negative charge, quickly!" Henry shouted before being tackled by Hallsson and avoiding a chair that would have otherwise hit him In the head.

"I tried tha-" Everything went black as a blue sphere expanded from the device, growing and growing until it swallowed both cruisers before disappearing into nothingness. There was not a trace of either warship left.

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**Thanks for reading and please follow, favourite and review if you liked it. You may do so as well if you didn't like it, I'm not stopping you. Constructive criticism is appreciated, though.**

**May the Chief be with you.**


	2. Chapter 2: Arrival

**Welcome back! Here ya go with the next chapter of Phantom Pain! I want to say thank you to all the people that have favorited/followed/reviewed. So thank you; Aldewin, Dotton, Heisenbee, SmokeTinyTom, t momez, BIGDZ**** and gwb99!**

**I also give you the chance to insert your own OC's for this story. Just PM me these things: name, age, gender, race, job/rank, appearance (hair colour, scars, color of his/her eyes, facial hair, etc.) and a little bit of backstory, not too much, but enough for me to work with. Please no SPARTANs, I've already got ideas for that.**

**I hope you enjoy!**

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~Chapter 2~

"…ain, captain get up!"

He slowly opened his eyes and sat up, a movement he instantly regretted as a burst of pain suddenly went through his head.

He looked around and saw that most of the people that were present in the lab were waking up as well. Edward was standing on his pedestal, apparently he was the one that had awoken him up.

"Ugh, my head. Ed, status report."

"Good, you're awake. We have minor hull damage and are running on axillary generators right now. I'm working on getting the main ones online, it should be done in about ten minutes. The Huragok are already tending to all the other damage, including the hull." His avatar flickered as he tried to reroute some power to the pedestal. "Crew is now waking up, a couple have a concussion from falling unconscious and hitting the floor with their head and one has a broken foot after he dropped a crate on it. Vehicles are all undamaged except one pelican dropship."

"And the _Unbending Justice_?"

"The same."

"Alright, set the crew to highest alert, power up shields as soon as you can and send out some probes." He turned to the prone form of his friend and decided to wake her up. "Kiyo', wake up, you've slept long enough now."

The large Sangheili female grunted and two orange eyes fluttered open. "What has happened?"

"We don't exactly know that. What we _do _know is that something happened that wasn't supposed to happen."

"Are the ships alright Andrew?" she asked.

"Yeah, a bit shaken, but alright."

"I must get back to the _Unbending Justice_ and assess the situation there." She stood up slowly and talked in her comm device, "Pilot, start the Phantom, I am returning to my ship."

She clenched her fist at her chest and looked down at Andrew, "It was good to see you once again, brother. But I must leave now and take back command over my own ship." "It was good to see you to, sister." He said as he repeated the Sangheili salute.

Suddenly all the lights flickered back on and the red emergency lights turned off. He could hear the generators humming in the background as he made his way back to the bridge. He was followed by the three ODST that had stood guard at the door to the laboratories.

"Sir, if I may speak freely?" it was the private, Gus.

"Go ahead private Swanson."

"What the hell is going on? Are we under attack?"

"To be honest with you, I have no idea what the hell is going on and no we are not under attack at this moment." The captain answered and Gus nodded that he had understood.

After a while they finally reached the bridge and it was already a flurry of commotion. Ensigns and engineers were running everywhere and no one even noticed the young captain entering the bridge until the sergeant of the ODST's that were accompanying yelled loudly, "Captain on deck!" and all the people on the bridge immediately stopped with what they were doing to salute.

"As you were." Andrew said and everyone continued with their respective tasks. "Edward, can you give me an update on the probe?"

"Yes, it has just sent the first data-package and I am now deciphering the data." The green AI paused for a second. "Sir, I have some good news, some bad news and some very bad news."

Andrew frowned and pinched the bridge of his nose, "By all means, go ahead Edward."

"The good news is; I know where we are."

"And the bad and very bad news?"

"The bad news is that we're not in our galaxy anymore."

"What?!"

"We're not in our galaxy anymore."

"I heard you the first time. What is the very bad news?"

"This galaxy is far far away from the milky way galaxy and except for the device that got us here, we have no way back. Unless of course you want to fly back for several millennia. Even if we used the device, it wouldn't be certain that we would end up in our galaxy."

"Which galaxy is it?"

"This galaxy has been designated as Foxtrot-one-two-two five."

Andrew let out an exasperated sigh and noticed the crew was dead silent. They had been listening in on the conversation between the captain and the AI.

"What do we do now captain?" a young ensign asked. There was a little bit of fear in her eyes.

"Contact the _Unbending Justice_ they need to be informed of this and have to be present when we decide our next course of action.

* * *

"This is indeed troubling news captain. What do you reckon we should do?" the shipmistress asked her human counterpart.

"Naval protocol dictates that the first thing to do when in unknown space is to find a way to survive. We've located a garden planet in the outer reaches of this galaxy that is able to sustain life and has adequate resources in the area in the form of a gas giant with a mineral rich asteroid belt."

"Then we must head there and set up at least a temporary base of opera-" she was cut off by the English AI that appeared on the pedestal next to Andrew.

"Captain, shipmistress, one of our probes has picked up a signal!"

"Do you mean that there is sentient life out here?" Andrew asked with a dazed look on his face.

"Yes, I'm decrypting the message right now. And it's done, I have to say chaps, their encryption was very easy to crack, a dumb AI would have done a better job than the-" a look of surprise entered the AI's 'face'. "Sir, ma'am, you need to see this."

Edward's avatar disappeared and in its place came a blue hologram of an old looking human that was talking about how some sort of organisation had invaded their planet and were keeping the population in prison camps.

A look of shock entered the entirety of the bridge crew's and the Sangheili's faces. "Ed, I thought you said we were in another galaxy?" he pulled his hand through his short cropped brown hair.

"We are captain, it is very possible that humanity has been spread to multiple galaxies by the forerunners. Even then it is curious that they speak English."

"Construct, do you know the coordinates of this planet?"

"What are you planning Mantakrea?" Andrew asked his friend.

"It is our duty to protect humanity, Hallsson. We cannot watch passively as your kind is being oppressed." She said with clear dedication in her voice and he could hear some of the Sangheili in the background grunt in agreement.

He simply nodded. "Edward, do you have the coordinates?"

"Yes, I've already put them in the navigation systems and sent it to the _Unbending Justice_."

"Good, tell the ODST and marines to get ready for battle. O'Malley, spin up the slip space drive, we're going to liberate a planet!"

The entire crew cheered and the Sangheili shipmistress smiled before the holoscreen disappeared.

In front of the two cruisers, two blue portals widened until they were large enough to let the ship's through and the two hunks of metal and technology shot forward. When they were both entirely swallowed by the blue light, the portals closed behind them.

* * *

Meanwhile, in the Jedi temple, a small green alien woke up from his meditation with a with a start, he had just felt a major shift in the balance of the energy field around all living beings that was the force.

A dark skinned human looked at the old alien with curiosity. "What is it master Yoda?"

"What it is, I do not know. Change, things are going to, master Windu. Feel it I can, in the force."

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**Please review and help me become a better writer!**

**Thanks for reading, I hope you liked it and may the Chief be with you.**


	3. Chapter 3: Contact

**Whoa… crazy fast updates right? It won't be always like this, the last two chapters were written in the weekend and I had a day off from school so I decided to write some more now that the pools of inspiration are still full.**

**Thank you for favorite-ing/following/reviewing; Spell checker1111, RangeroftheMojave, Granet, Windtalkers1, anothokuro, curlyj and nicklaren.**

**Thank you SmokeTinyTom for being awesome. The idea of the Machete heavy fighter-bomber came from him. Envision the marauder destroyer from Warhammer 40k but more Halo-like**

**Enjoy!**

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~chapter 3~

"Exiting slip space in five, four, three, two, one." An ensign called out.

"Sir we have one contact, capital class, an odd three thousand meters long and wide and around a thousand meters in height/depth. Multiple weapon systems and two large hangars." His XO O'Malley called out after quickly scanning over the sensor readings.

"Get us into view range and try to hail the ship as soon as you can." Andrew told the navigation officer and comms officer respectively and pressed the intercom button. "All hands to battle stations, this is not a drill." He let go of the button and turned to one of the other officers sat by a console. "Get interceptor squadrons Archangel, Eagle, Viper and Daemon in the air. I want bomber squadron Havoc and Mayhem targeting essential systems such as hangers and gun batteries, launch the Machete heavy fighter-bomber squadron Marauder and keep bomber squadron Chaos back for ground operations. Let's get the fighter superiority."

Edward flickered to life on the holo pedestal. "Sir, I'm getting signs of heavy fighting on surface. Most of it is going on in what is probably the capital and I'm picking up on small EMP signs and more enemy forces in a plain not far out from the city."

"Contact the _Unbending Justice_, tell them to hail the ship and attack if they do not comply. Hack into their systems and get as much info as you can, and only that, you're a powerful trump card and we do not yet know what exactly they're capable of. Navigations officer, set a course for an orbit around the planet. Ed, tell the ODST to get ready and prepare some ODIFV's for them."

"Sir, course plotted, we'll be there in two minutes."

"Good, let's show these fuckers that you don't mess with humans. For the Mantle!"

* * *

The captain of the _Vutuun Palaa_, Daultay Dofine, was sitting in his command chair on the bridge of the large droid control ship thinking why he had been chosen for one of the most boring jobs in the entire fleet when the monotone voice of a droid suddenly sounded over the relatively calm bridge. "Captain, we have detected high energy readings in the system."

_Finally something is happening, I was getting bored._ "Can you say what it is?"

"Affirmative sir, it seems to be two cruiser class ships. Ship designs do not match any known ships in the database." The droid said.

"Hmm, when will they come into view?"

"Now sir."

And then he saw them; one very ugly blocky ship that was painted black and had some unrecognisable writing and a large predatory bird clutching a planet in its talons painted on it, also with strange writing under it. One thing was certain, this ship was built for one purpose, war.

The other one was more eye pleasing. It was painted dark-blue and was made up of organic shapes. The beauty however, didn't take away the obvious purpose of this ship, to annihilate any opposition.

"Try to hail them, we need to know their intentions." Dofine said

"Sir, we're already being hailed by the right-most ship, the other one seems to be heading for an orbit around the planet. Should I answer the hail?"

"Yes you imbecile."

"Roger, roger."

the image of a large reptilian alien appeared on screen and started speaking, "Greetings, I am shipmistress Kiyo' Mantakrea of the _Unbending Justice_, you are occupying a planet that is inhabited by a race we have vowed to protect, leave now and we will spare you."

Daultay almost laughed, this alien was _demanding_ of him that he left the planet. "And on what authority do you speak shipmistress?"

Suddenly another image appeared, this time of a human. "We speak on the authority of protecting the people on this planet, we give you one last chance to leave or we _will_ take action."

"And who might you be?" snarled the Neimodian captain.

"Captain Andrew Hallsson of the _UNSC William of Orange_." The captain answered calmly.

"These people have violated a trade agreement and are now being punished, you have no authority here."

The large alien spoke again, "So be it captain." And then the connection was terminated.

Far in the back of his mind, there was a small voice telling the captain that he had made a great mistake.

* * *

"Sir, we are overhead of the city, ODST's and the ODIFV's are ready for drop."

"Launch them, but tell them to keep collateral damage as low as possible." The captain said.

Another ensign snickered. "Sir, I dint think that is possible. Gamma squad is with them."

This put a smile on Hallsson's lips. Gamma Squad was known for the huge amounts of damage they caused on each mission, the only reason they hadn't been court martialled for it was probably the high success rating on all their missions.

"Captain, there are fifteen fighter size craft taking off from one of the central buildings!"

"Are they hostile?"

Ed answered that question, "Negative, they are designated as enemies by the enemy ship. Most likely is that people got into the hangars and are now heading to the lucrehulk."

"Lucrehulk?"

"Ah, yes sorry. That is the class of the large carrier in orbit of the planet."

"Let them be then, but send them a message not to shoot at our fighters, send the same message to ours." He turned his attention back to the city. "Do the ODST's know their orders?"

"Yes sir, destroy enemy forces and free civilians."

"Good, launch in three, two, one, now. Tell Chaos to take off and bomb ground targets on the plains." And a large amount of HEV drop pods were shot into the atmosphere while a squad of seven bombers left the hangars to provide assistance to ground units.

"Alright, launch pelicans as soon as fighter superiority is established. I need troops on the ground. Also get the Scorpion MKIII's attached to their transports and send them to the plains."

* * *

**Two minutes earlier**

Gamma, consisting of five humans, two Sangheili and a Huragok which was affectionately called Squidward that would stay on the ship, was preparing for the orbital drop.

The squad leader, Mike 'Villain' Washington, was checking his BR-552 HL, a new kind of battle rifle that is able to shoot hard light rounds as well as explosive rounds and second only in reliability to the AR-507 R3 series Assault rifle, the rifle both Miranda 'Songbird' Michaelson and the rookie, Gus, used. He looked over to where Rookie was sitting. _We'll have to show him how it's done in Gamma._ He thought and grinned wildly.

At the same time, Louis 'Turtle' Gerard was filling his backpack with spare ammo, grenades and a whole lot of C7 and C12 plastic explosives. "You do know that the captain gave orders to avoid collateral damage right?" Emma 'Archer' Metford said with a clear English accent while cradling her DMR.

"Pff, you neveur know when you will need explosifs. Don't try to tell moi what to do Emma." The Frenchmen said with mock annoyance in his voice.

A few chirps came from Squidward and Emma reacted, "I know, right? I would have loved to have you with us, but orders are orders. Urban combat isn't meat for someone so adorable as you."

The Huragok squeaked delightedly as he rubbed his head against her shoulder.

"Stop flirting with the biological supercomputer Metford, the brothers are already waiting by the HEV's." Mike said.

Miranda slung a rocket launcher over her shoulder and spoke up, "Do we get the IFV's with us this time?" an ODIFV was basically an IFV, Infantry Fighting Vehicle, that was equipped with a disposable energy shield and thrusters to keep it from melting in re-entry ant to soften the landing, OD standing of course for Orbital Drop.

"Yes, we will. Now get to the pods and strap in, let's show these hostiles what we're made off!"

Gus just rolled his eyes at the 74 year old gunnery sergeant, quite old, but when age expectancy for the average human is nearly 200 years old, still very acceptable in the military.

He sat down and strapped in, seeing his other squad mates do the same, he put on his helmet and awaited orbital insertion. He felt how the pod turned and was released from the ship. The timer started and a synthetic female voice started counting down; ten, nine, eight, seven… He took a deep breath. …three, two, one, drop sequence activated.

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**Hope ya liked it, sorry to all offended French people. Cry a river, build a bridge and get over it.**

**Goodbye and may the Chief be with you.**


	4. Chapter 4: Orphan

**Alright, so the best way to invade Cana- Hey you're back! Er… this isn't what it looks like! *Wipes tactical maps and invasion plans off the table and quickly closes the door behind several generals and admirals.* I'm totally not trying to invade Canada. But to the point; WELCOME BACK! I would thank all the people that have reviewed/followed/favorited by name, but that would take effort and I can't really be bothered right now, I have a nation to inv- I mean I have homeless kittens to adopt.**

**But I thank you all sincerely for supporting this story! You may notice that it has some resemblance to other SW/Halo x-overs, but I really try to make original content on this site. It may be impossible, but hey, if you don't shoot, it's always a miss.**

**Thank you gwb99 for being awesome and submitting a whole platoon!**

**As you may notice in this chapter, there will be emotional stuff in this fanfic, this is not a "shoot every enemy and on to the next scene" action-to-action hopper.**

**There will be a list of OC's/units/other submitted stuff in the A/N on the end of this chapter.**

**in this story, dialogue between * means a conversation over comms. The conversations with holograms or videoscreens will still be between ".**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing but my own OC's and inventions such as the ODIFV.**

**Enjoy!**

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~Chapter 4~

The battle in orbit was fairly one-sided, the pure energy of the plasma torpedoes and turrets simply bypassed the trade federation carrier's shields, melting and warping its armour plating, while the lasers shot from the halo-like ship were easily stopped by the multiple layers of energy shielding and hardlight emitters that would calculate the place a laser or projectile would hit and form a temporary barrier. Sadly, this method was only useful in small engagements or the emitters would overload.

The fifteen bright-yellow fighters had been very helpful, it wasn't that the combined firepower of Banshees, Serapds, Machete heavy fighter-bombers and Dagger interceptors couldn't fend the fast but very weak drones the enemy used as fighters off, but all help was appreciated.

"Ma'am, shield are down to 93%, the enemy vessel shows signs of heavy damage and is almost disabled." A Kig-Yar operator said.

"Do not destroy this sorry excuse for a warship, I want the captain alive for interrogation. Prepare Sangheili Spec-ops for a boarding operation once the ship is disabled." The large Sangheili shipmistress said, already smiling because of the easy victory. She hadn't let down her guard though, if there is one thing she had learnt the hard way in battle school on Sangheilios, it was to never let your guard down.

The fact that she wanted the captain alive was probably the only reason she hadn't had sliced the pathetic ship in half with the energy projectors in the first ten seconds of the engagement. She hoped Andrew's warriors on the ground were having as easy a fight as them.

* * *

Gus looked over to the somewhat psychopathic dark-skinned Frenchman that filled the squad's supportive role. He was holding down the trigger of his light machine gun, sending a stream of bullets down a road and mowing down several groups of the flimsy robots.

A couple of the shielded robots rolled into view. He destroyed one with a well-placed shot before it could deploy, but was too late to take out another one before it deployed its energy shields. He reached down at his belt to grab a plasma grenade, only to notice he had already thrown them all. "Turtle, I'm out of grenades here!" he yelled over the gunfire.

Gerard stopped firing for a couple of moments to grab some from his backpack. He gestured for Gus to keep up suppressive fire and the rookie shot a couple of hardlight rounds their way.

"'Ere you go mon amie, blow zem up." Turtle said as he tossed a blue orb to Gus who caught it in his left hand. He could almost feel Louis' grin behind his silver visor.

He rolled his eyes, _I've been doing that a lot lately._ He thought while priming the plasma grenade. He waited a second and then stepped out of his cover and threw the blue orb towards the group of annoying robots that stood amongst the three legged bastards.

It stuck to the chest piece of one of them and if they wouldn't have been fighting, they would have laughed as the droid panicked and started running in circles when it noticed it couldn't get it off. The blue fire engulfed the group and even though the shields protected them from the flames, the three legged robots melted from the massive heat of exploding plasma.

He looked at the carnage around him and realised how Gamma squad had gotten their reputation. And they weren't even all here! The rest of the squad had landed- if you could even call a pod dropping from orbit a landing- in a different area of the city. They would all regroup at their objective; one of the prison camps dotted around the city and try to get as many civilians as possible to the LZ's with help from the 513th Army Rangers platoon.

They ran further down the road, unfazed by any enemy forces. They followed a trail of wrecked metal bodies and a few destroyed tanks until they saw movement on their motion trackers marked with a yellow dot, meaning it was not clear if it was an ally or an enemy, from an alley to their right.

Gus snapped his AR-507 R3 toward the source of the sound and movement and looked over to Turtle, him being technically higher in rank than the private. The Frenchman thought this was a perfect opportunity to see how the rookie would react in an unexpected situation and gestured him to speak.

Gus nodded, "You have ten seconds to identify yourself, come out unarmed and with your hands on your head or we _will_ open fire!"

He immediately lowered his assault rifle when he saw who it was that set off the motion sensor. It was a little girl, probably nine or ten years old, with a frightened but at the same time defiant look in her green eyes. She was wearing dirty ragged clothes and looked half starved.

He thought on what to do and depolarised his visor. Seeing a human face calmed the girl down a bit and he crouched down to be on eyelevel with her. "A-are you the people that shot the bad robots?"

"Yes little girl, we're here to help." He said in a reassuring voice. "Are you hungry?"

She nodded shyly, still keeping some distance from the two strange soldiers. "Here ya go." Gus said as he pulled a pack of tactical bacon out of a small bag on his belt, shook it wildly, causing the harmless chemicals inside the rations pack to heat the meal up instantly and stretched his arm out to the girl.

She hesitantly came closer to him and snatched the pack from his hand. She devoured it like she hadn't eaten in several days, which probably was the case.

"Easy now little girl, we don't want you to get cramps."

"I'm noh a wittle gurwl." She said with her mouth full of tactical bacon and stared angrily at him.

He only chuckled at her reaction and stood up from his crouched position. *Any hostiles Turtle?* he asked over private comms.

*Non, but Villain asked us to double-time over zhere. I have all ze C12.*

*What do we do with the girl?*

*Zhat, mon amie, is your decision. Also she is your responsibility if we take her with us.*

Gus sighed and looked over to the happily eating girl. "What's your name, I can't just keep calling you little girl can I?"

"My name is Ratha."

"Ratha, we're going to meet up with some of our friends, do want to come with us? We're going to free prisoners and maybe your parents will be there." He said with a reassuring smile.

She suddenly got a sad look in her eyes and spoke with a quivering voice that immediately made his smile disappear. "I-I don't have any p-parents, they- they- t-the droids killed them." She started crying and hugged Gus tightly, who looked at Louis for a second and hugged her back.

"Ssssh, it's gonna be okay, Ratha. Just stick with us and you'll be fine."

She sobbed and he petted her head until she finally let go of him. "Can I really come with you?"

"Yeah, but we gotta move fast so," he slung his assault rifle over his back, attaching it to the magnetic clamps and grabbed his smaller silenced SMG from the ones located on his thigh. ", get on my back." She didn't hesitate and leapt on his back for a piggyback ride.

*Gamma three, Gamma eight, come in.*

*Gamma eight here, three is with me.* the rookie said.

*The ship in orbit has been destroyed, apparently deactivating all the battledroids on-surface. You are to proceed to an LZ that is marked on your VISR.*

*Copy that, moving out. We have a civilian with us that is malnourished and might need medical care.*

*Alright, a medic is on their way to the LZ. Good travels Gamma.* and with that last statement, the link was terminated.

"Hold on tight Ratha, let's go." He polarised his visor again and with turtle in the lead, they set off for the landing zone.

* * *

**Five minutes ago; orbit above Naboo**

"Shipmistress, one of the native's fighters has just flown into the enemy hangar."

"How far off is the Spec-ops team?" Kiyo' asked.

"Still seven minutes off ,shipmistress, they were attacked by an enemy fighter group and were forced to perform evasive manoeuvres until two Machetes took their pursuers out."

"Tell them to return to the _Unbending Justice _ and message all fighters to stay clear of the enemy ship. I think I know what the pilot of that fighter is trying to do." They had received the ship's blueprints from Edward after he hacked into their systems. Apparently it was designed to have direct access to the main reactor from the hangar-bays.

Her suspicions were confirmed when a small yellow fighter flew out of the hangars followed by a large fireball and a few seconds later the carrier exploded.

* * *

**As you may have noticed, the story centres around mostly Gus and Andrew, but others will come into view as the story progresses.**

**UNSC Army Rangers (gwb99): a platoon of 23 HALO jumping, jetpack flying black visor-ed mothertruckers (4 squads of five and a medic, a commander and a radio operator). Once they are deployed, they use the M557 'cheeta' APC (think a land raider from WH 40K but with antigrav instead of tracks.) ther commander is LT. Alice Graham. If you want an idea on how these guys and gals operate, watch the Planetside 2 cinematic trailer.**

**Machete heavy fighter-bomber (SmokeTinyTom): Marauder squadron consists of 10 Machete class fighters. With a length of 60 meters and a width of 75 meters, this behemoth comes with the best and newest Hard Light weaponry and incineration rockets. Emergency Hard Light emitters are activated when its heavy shielding fails and it sports two rear gunners, one on top and one on the bottom and a Hydrogen/plasma/fusion reactor for almost unlimited power capabilities.**

**If you send me a unit/new vehicle, it will be on the end A/N of the next chapter. OC's will be introduced in the story itself.**

**Thank you for reading and sorry for the long A/N.**

**May the Chief be with you.**


	5. Chapter 5: Rest

**Welcome back! The waterfall of updates has staggered a bit because of exams this week and a general feeling of tiredness. I made it a bit longer than usual, just cause I can. Since this is taking place some 50 years after Halo, I have taken the liberty to upgrade the **_**William of Orange**_** and other tech a bit, and with a bit I mean a lot.**

**Thank you to everyone that favorited/followed/reviewed and I hope you enjoy!**

**P.S. don't forget you can still submit OC's and other ideas and things to the Phantom Rain, the more stuff I have to write about, the faster chapters will come. This may sound contradicting, but just go with it.**

* * *

~Chapter 5~

Andrew was processing what the AI had just told him. Ed had downloaded the entirety of the ship's database before it had been blown up by a Nabooian- as had Edward told him the planet was named, Naboo.- fighter that had simply flown into the hangar and bown up the main reactor from within. _What moron would design a ship to have its reactor directly attached to the main hangar?_ The idea was just retarded. The UNSC had seen much war, the insurrection, the Great War, the Flood and they were still fighting some Covenant remnant forces. And after around ninety years of continuous war, you learn how to design a good ship. His Marathon II-class heavy cruiser was a perfect example.

It was a true technological marvel, using the energy of a compressed red dwarf, it could go without refuelling for millennia. Top of the line energy shields and hard light emitters with a new kind of compressed titanium hull dotted with point-defence laser turrets, it took a hell of a lot of firepower to take his baby down. And that were just the defensive capabilities, the offensive were something else entirely. A miniaturised and modernised version of the energy projector first used on the _Infinity_, dual MAC cannons, able to fire 600 ton slugs across space at a quarter of the speed of light, fifty Reaper missile pods and two dozen Heavy Onagers and hard light turrets and two plasma torpedo tubes.

But to the point, he had just found out that this planet was part of a galaxy spanning government called; _The Galactic Republic_. A government that had done _nothing_ for the people on this planet. He had also found out that this planet had a queen, he found it strange that an advanced civilisation was still bound by a monarchy, but from the reports he read, the queens and kings had always been good to the people so he decided to drop that from his thoughts.

The next thing however, made him frown and pull his hand through his short brown hair. There was an order of peace-keeping warrior monks in this galaxy called the Jedi. They were supposed to have mystical powers such as telekinesis and used an a type of energy sword that was called a lightsaber. They are apparently very skilled in the art of war, for people that were supposed to keep the peace that was. The next thing reminded him of the SPARTAN II program, they took in children and trained them from a young age. He saved the file under _[read later]_ and went on to the next file.

Before he could continue however, he was interrupted by the green AI. "Sir, I have the casualty report and ODST are returning to the _Orange_. Marines are securing the city and we have gotten a request from the queen to meet both you and shipmistress Mantakrea."

"Send the casualty report to my tacpad and let someone tell the queen that I will meet her as soon as I can." He yawned and rubbed his bright blue eyes.

"Sir, when is the last time you slept?" Edward asked, a bit concerned with his captain's health.

"Not since we got into this galaxy." He said tiredly.

"Captain, I strongly advise you to get rested before entering any diplomatic talks." Edward saw that his captain was about to deny the fact that he was tired and decided to cut him off before he could. "Sir, I am hooked up to the ship and body scans show reduced brain activity and efficiency and all other signs of exhaustion. I can run the ship while you rest a couple of hours and then you can go right back to irresponsible behaviour, sir."

"Fine," he sighed, "Lieutenant O'Malley has the bridge."

"I have the bridge." His XO replied.

"Ed, I think I'll go to the hangar. I want some first-hand reports from the ODST and assess the damage Gamma has done."

The AI chuckled, "Alright sir, I'll walk with you then." A small drone came out of the holo pedestal, projecting a green hardlight figure the 18th century English gentleman that Edward had chosen as his avatar.

"Shouldn't you be monitoring the ship?" Andrew jested.

"I am, you _are _aware I have the ability to be at several places at the same time right old chap?"

The doors parted in front of the duo and they made their way over to the hangar, "Don't call me old Ed, I'm only 35." Andrew grumbled.

"You are to me, sir. I am only just two years old."

"That explains a lot." The young captain muttered under his breath, but loud enough for Edward to hear who sent him a glare.

They kept in a comfortable silence, only broken by Edward's cane clacking against the titanium floor, until they reached the hangar the ODST would arrive at where a pair of marine guards were exchanging stories about something and hadn't noticed the two.

The first one was telling his excitedly, "So, the insurrectionists were attacking our base right. We were being overrun and out of nowhere this Spartan shows up and starts attacking the fuckers. We knew we couldn't really help so we just watched the SPARTAN absolutely kick the shit out of the innies, I kinda felt sorry for them. Eventually he ripped one of their men's skull out when he was out of ammo and started to beat the guy and his friends to death with it."

"Dude, how's that even physically possible?" the second one said with amazed confusion.

"Yeah, that's what we thought too. In fact, the guy who he was beating to death with it was screaming that the whole time."

Andrew coughed to get their attention and when they saw who it was they immediately saluted. "At ease, gentlemen." He said with a smile and continued on through the door into the hangar.

"That was an interesting story." The AI chuckled.

"Yes and strangely I don't think it is exaggerated all that much."

* * *

Gus held on to the sleeping child in his arms while the pelican rocked from exiting the atmosphere. She had fallen asleep after the doctors at the LZ had taken a look at her and told him that she was alright, only a bit bruised and starved. She hadn't let go of him since and against his better judgement he decided to take her aboard the _William of Orange._

Emma kicked the body of a deactivated droid and looked at Miranda. "What did you want to do with this piece of junk gain Songbird?"

"Make it our own private Gamma butler." She replied.

"And how are you going to do that?" Emma asked, her British accent clearly noticeable.

"You _do_ know that I am our combat mechanic an hacker, right? And besides, we always have Squidward, I bet he'll help me." Miranda said confidently.

"Yes I am aware of that." The marksman said annoyed.

"I think Emma is right, this does not seem like it is a well thought out plan." One of the Sangheili brothers, M'tar 'Vadum, nephew to Rtas 'Vadum and brother to Grul 'Vadum and also the more rational of the two.

"I think it is a good idea." His brother said, just to contradict him.

"You just said that because I said it is a bad idea."

"Yes, yes I did."

His brother sighed and dropped the topic while Gus, who's helmet had folded back into his armour, revealing a young face with jet black hair and a light stubble, rolled his steel-grey eyes. _Damn it, I need to stop doing that._

Ratha stirred in his arms. "Guys, can you please be a little quieter?" he said in a hushed voice.

"Hey rookie, how did you find our new Gamma member anyway?" Miranda asked with an amused smile on her lips.

"She was hiding in an alley and showed up on the motion tracker, she was all starved so we gave her some of my field rations, told me that her parents died so we took her to the LZ." Villain, who had kept quiet the entire time they had been in the pelican, spoke up, "Did Turtle tell you that she's your responsibility?"

"Yes he did sarge, and if anything happens it's on me."

"Good, as long as you remember that. So what are you going to do with her when we leave, assuming captain Hallsson lets her stay of course." The squad leader said.

Gus let out a long sigh "To be honest sarge, I have no idea. I can't just send her back, she has nowhere to go. I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get to that."

"We are approaching zhe hangar, le capitain is waiting zhere for us to give a report. ETA one minute." Louis called out from the cockpit.

* * *

Andrew watched as the pelican containing Gamma landed on the deck in front of him. Their mission had gone as expected, perfectly while leaving a couple of house blocks worth of damage.

The hatch opened and gamma exited, Gunnery Sergeant Washington first, then the 'Vadum brothers, Emma Metford fourth, Miranda while carrying a deactivated droid fifth, Louis Gerard sixth and finally Gus Swanson, who was carrying a small sleeping human girl in his arms.

He pinched his nose and said with a stern but not unkind voice, "Private Swanson, would you please explain why you are carrying a that child and on my ship none the less?"

"She's an orphan, sir. I took her aboard because- well I really don't know why, sir, but she has nowhere to go and-"

"It's alright private, she can stay as long as is needed. Remember you have responsibility, though."

A smile appeared on his face, "Aye sir, I've been remembered of it three times already."

The captain chuckled and behind him a, engineer dropped a crate full off steel tubes that clattered over the floor, waking up the petite girl. Hallsson sent an annoyed look at the engineers direction before turning his attention to the girl again.

Her eyes went wide and filled with panic, she screamed and in instinct stretched out her hand, sending Andrew and Edward's avatar flying. Gus dropped her out of shock and all of gamma aimed their guns at her. She landed on her feet and looked around in bewilderment until she recognised Gus and started crying.

She hugged him tightly and if he wouldn't have been wearing his combat gear, he would have guessed his shirt would have been soaked in tears. He hesitated for a couple seconds but hugged her back, making her calm down a bit. "Sssh, calm down, they won't hurt you. What was that?"

"I- I don't know, it just happened. I'm sorry." Ratha said, still sobbing and buried her face into his stomach again.

They could hear a loud groan and saw Hallsson being helped up by Washington. "Fucking hell, hitting my head once a day is enough for me. He looked at Ratha an Gus, "We'll handle this tomorrow, I need to sleep on this.

* * *

**Hope you enjoyed, I will now write 8 words to get this chapter to exactly 2000 words. Teaparty, urinal, pink rabbit, Pharaoh of the Netherlands.**


	6. Chapter 6: History

**Welcom back! Sorry this took a while, but it is one of the longest chapters I've ever written and kept running into writer's blocks. Thank you Smoke Tiny Tom for Beta-ing this chapter and thank you people who have followed, favorited and reviewed this story, you are awesome! This story is way more successful than I initially thought it would be and it has really motivated me to write more and better.**

**There are a couple of references in this chapter. I will give you a hint for one, because only Dutch people would get it. Probably not even all Dutch people. It has to do with the **_**William of Orange's**_** serial number.**

**I hope you enjoy! Don't forget you can still submit chapters and concepts for this story.**

* * *

~Chapter 6~

The captain heaved a sigh as he read through the casualty reports. Three Scorpion MBT's were destroyed and their crews KIA, 23 marines KIA, 15 of those and two pilots from a pelican crash, ten marines WIA, three ODST KIA, one Ranger WIA, five warthogs heavily damaged or destroyed and 7 civilians dead in the crossfire. Luckily, none of the fighters and bombers were destroyed

Over-all not that bad, for an unplanned assault without any intel on the enemy that is. He knew he shouldn't have just charged straight in like that, but his drive to protect others had kicked in and he didn't think about the consequences. Now 47 men and women lay dead and 12 were in the ship's infirmary with various wounds because of _his _actions.

Andrew hated himself for it, he remembered all the friends that he lost when he served on the UNSC _Chernarus,_ over fifty percent of the crew had died, some being sucked into the vacuum of space and others from several boarding parties that had made it through, but most had died when a reaper missile was had blown up by a surviving Banshee inside it's tube and taken a large part of the ship with it when the fighting was already over. That was where the drive to protect others came from, from the desire to not let anyone go through losing so many friends.

He knew Hiyo' had the same drive, it already shone through when she scared the bullies away the first time they met. With her though, it came from something else; she, like most Sangheili after the war ended felt a certain sense of guilt for the acts of genocide against the humans, called by them; the Great Debt, and had almost been defeated by the Storm after ONI sabotaged them. It was an understatement that the UNSC had been angry with ONI. No, they were _furious_. The Office of Naval Intelligence had been disbanded and the leadership executed or transferred to Sangheilios for punishment, the first one being the more desirable option.

But now was not the time to dwell on the past. He stood up and looked in the mirror, his dark grey uniform was a bit wrinkled, but the UNSC eagle and the _William of Orange's _emblem, a clawing orange lion, were still clear on it. He stroked the wrinkles out of his uniform and left his cabin. Now was the time to talk to the queen of Naboo and ask the Jedi that was there about what he had seen the girl Private Swanson had brought aboard do.

He made his way to the pelican that was prepped to bring him to the surface to find his security detail there waiting for him. Four ODST in their token black full body armour, armed with AR-507 R3's.

They saluted their captain and entered the pelican after him, he heard the dropship come to life and felt it take off. Edward appeared on the holo pedestal with a smile on his 'face', "Let's go meet some new people shall we?"

One of the ODST's chuckled, "Commin' with us Eddy?"

"Why yes, I wouldn't want to miss seeing the queen, especially since these people are from a different galaxy." He said with childish excitement in his voice.

"Calm down Ed, we have to pick up Mantakrea and her guards first." Andrew remarked and the AI seemed a little bit sad.

"Do we have to cap? She keeps calling me construct." Edward said in a mock disappointment.

To this all the men laughed and the pelican set off to the battlecruiser.

* * *

Padme looked out over the plaza in front of the palace as military vehicles and personnel buzzed around. The UNSC and USC, as they called themselves, were a peculiar bunch. They used what would go for primitive in galactic standards for their military forces. Wheels for one, hadn't been seen for millennia, the same counted for slug throwers. And yet they absolutely smashed the Trade's army.

Literally, their first wave of troops dropped from orbit in pods and with eight wheeled tanks, crushing droids in their landings. Sadly one had crashed into a museum and shattered a statue that was being borrowed from a museum back on Coruscant and was worth a lot of credits.

The young queen now stood on the steps to the palace with members of the Naboo defence force behind her and Obi-Wan next to her together with Jar Jar Binks, waiting for the captains of the ships to arrive.

The young queen looked up when she heard the now familiar roar of one of the dropships and seconds later a large green craft broke through the clouds and descended down to the ground, stopping in front of the stairs extending two struts from the back and lowered the ramp with a hiss.

As soon as the engines has shut down, four black clad soldiers wearing armour that looked like it was designed to be intimidating stepped out of the dropship and took positions around it. She looked at one of them, trying to see their face, but could only see her own reflection on their silver visors.

Next came aliens, these aliens were in no need for armour to intimidate and took her by surprise. She hadn't been expecting an entirely new race, all the soldiers she had seen on the ground were humans. They were easily seven- eight feet tall and had the demeanour of a race that had evolved for war. The guards wore golden armour engraved with runes she could not read - not that she could read what was written on the chest plates and shoulder pieces of their smaller black armoured companions - and they definitely looked important.

Amidala saw her guards and the Jedi next to her tighten up and sent them a reassuring look. It didn't help her guards much, but Kenobi seemed to calm down a little bit.

When all eight guards had exited and formed a sort of honour guard, two figures exited the craft side by side; one was a human of at least 6 feet tall with bright blue eyes and short brown hair and beard dressed in a dark grey uniform bearing the image of a predatory bird clutching a planet in its talons on the left shoulder and one of a clawing orange predator on his right. A medal and a few ribbons decorated his chest, signalling that he had not been a captain for very long.

The alien next to him was a bit smaller than the others of its kind and also wore gold armour, albeit with red pauldrons.

As soon as they reached the welcome committee the human extended his hand to her, "Captain Andrew Hallsson of the _UNSC_ _William of Orange_, I presume you are the queen?" He said in strangely accented basic and she shook his hand. "Indeed I am captain." And she turned her attention to the alien standing next to the captain and had to crane her neck to look into its eyes, which were a warm brown colour.

"I am shipmistress Kiyo' Mantakrea, of the _USC Unbending Justice_." It - no, she - said in a gentle feminine voice.

"I'm Queen Padme Amidala of Naboo and next to me are Jedi knight Obi-wan Kenobi and Gungan representative Jar Jar Binks. I have to say that we are very grateful for your help in liberating our planet and if there is anything you need, we will provide it to you if within our power."

"Do not worry, we were merely doing what we thought was right. If we can take this talk inside? What I am about to tell you should not be heard by unfriendly ears."

* * *

"Wait, what?!" she all but screamed, almost losing her composure in front of an alien and a human that claimed to be from another galaxy.

"It may sound strange, but if you would ask the Jedi next to you, he'll tell you he didn't feel what you people call a 'force signature'." Hallsson looked at the Jedi and he slowly nodded, small traces of shock on the young man's face.

The queen just looked incredulous before Mantakrea spoke, "We understand if you do not believe us, so let us show you the history of our people. Edward, If you will?"

Everyone looked around for this Edward person, it couldn't be a guard, because those were stationed outside the richly decorated meeting room, before a green hologram of a man wearing strange clothes appeared. He wore a very tall hat and some sort of long coat and held a walking cane in his right hand.

"Who is this, Shipmistress?" Obi-wan asked, surprised that he could feel a hologram's presence in the force as a living being.

"I am a smart AI, designation EDD 6336-231 for the _UNSC William of Orange_ WVN-584." The hologram said and tipped his hat. "But people usually call me Edward."

The AI scratched his chin, "Hmmm… I thought the queen would be here."

"I am." Padme said flat toned.

"Oh my, excuse me you highness. I was looking through the databases and I must say, the information about your galaxy is quite vast and I wasn't paying attention. Normally that wouldn't be a problem, but a large part of me is still in the ship. You should really do something about your firewalls, it took me exactly 3.1483164 seconds to find a way arou-"

"Ed, get to the point." Andrew said, annoyed by the AI's rambling.

"Wait, hold on for a second. You _broke _into our database?!"

"Technically not, I found a way to bypass the firewalls."

"_Ed_"

"Ah yes, the history," a grave look suddenly appeared on the AI's 'face' and his body was replaced by a map of the Milky Way.

"This is the Milky Way galaxy, the home to the Unified Earth Government and the United Species Coalition. It all began when we started to look at the stars and wondered what would be up there. After the second world war, the Unites States and what was then the Soviet Union, or USSR, started a space-race and not long after, the first man was in space. Later a rocket was built and on 14 December 1969, the first men were on the moon." Edward showed a video of Neil Armstrong saying his legendary words and continued by telling them everything and pausing at the point of the rainforest wars.

"The Rain Forest Wars in 2162 was a war between the United nations, the Koslovics and the Frieden movement and in the process destroyed a large part of the Amazon rainforest, hence the name. Shortly after, the UEG was formed." He showed a picture of a lush green forest full of wildlife, after which this picture was replaced by one where the forest was burning and most life in that area had been destroyed, to which the Nabooians looked shocked.

"This was the first interplanetary war and one where the UNSC, the military branch of the UEG, together with exploration and research, showed its worth. Mankind set out for the stars again and eventually the amount of colonies was at 800 worlds, there was a time of prosperity, but soon some of the outer colonies started to rebel against the UEG's unpopular centralistic policies." A video played to show a group of badly armed people fighting professional soldiers, followed by one where a group of those people hijacked a military vessel.

"The United Rebel Front was formed and more and more colonies started to defect from the UEG. This event is called the insurrection. The insurrectionists committed acts of terrorism, even detonating a nuclear bomb in a heavily populated area." A hologram of a massive crater appeared.

"the insurrection grew and grew until finally, we made first contact at the planet Harvest." A hologram of Harvest appeared, "It wasn't peaceful." The hologram changed to a planet of molten rock and glass."

"W-what happened?" Padme asked with a quivering voice and Andrew spoke up,

"After a five year long campaign, Harvest was lost. They came into the atmosphere and _glassed_ the entire planet and its inhabitants." Kiyo' just looked down in shame of what her people had done under the false prophets.

Edward resumed his story, "One by one, the alliance of alien races glassed our planets in the name of their gods. We could fight them with a three-to-one advantage and still lose an entire fleet. It wasn't a war for victory, no, it was a war for _survival_. In fact, it wasn't a war at all, it was genocide. Eventually we were down to the core worlds and a few outer colonies." Another hologram of a planet was shown, this time it was a lush green one. "This is the planet of Reach, the most well defended planet second only to Earth and the centre of most of our military. We defended it, but eventually it too fell."

"But hope was not lost, after the heroic sacrifices of SPARTAN squad Noble, one of our greatest heroes made it out on the _Pillar of Autumn_ with an AI that would eventually turn the tide of the war. These heroes were Sierra-117, or the Master Chief and the AI Cortana. They found out about the Flood and Halo rings. The Flood is a parasitic race that only desires to spread and the Halo rings were rings made by the Forerunners, a race that lived over 100,000 years ago. They stopped the Flood by firing the Halo array, 7 Halo's spread across the galaxy, and after storing samples of all sentient life they fired and killed the food source for the Flood, after which the galaxy was repopulated."

"Eventually there was a new Flood and a pact was made between the Swords of Sangheilios and the UNSC to wipe out the flood. The Arbiter – leader of the Sangheili – eventually ended up helping us in the war against the covenant and defected after the Prophets were proven false, causing the Great Schism."

"The Great war ended in 2552. After three decades of fighting a genocidal war, approximately 23 billion human lives were lost, numerous worlds were changed into molten glass and countless families torn apart."

"The USC was formed and after fifty years and the Kig-Yar rebellion, we're still fighting Covenant remnant forces. We now live mostly in peace and humanity inherited the mantle of responsibility from the forerunners as a new way of life, dubbing us protectors of sentient life in our galaxy." Edward concluded his tale and his regular form appeared once again.

Amidala, Kenobi and Jar Jar Binks were all dead silent. Padme looked shocked and was left completely speechless.

* * *

**Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed. Next chapter will be a bit more about Gus.**

**Cya and may the Chief be with you.**


	7. Chapter 7: Home

**Alright, here it is, with thanks to SmokeTinyTom for beta-ing. Some explanation on how this chapter came to be: I have read multiple of the type of "transported into another universe/galaxy/time/planet" crossovers, in fact I am writing one, but I noticed that in a lot of those stories the families, friends, hell even pets, of the people in the story are barely mentioned and a lot of times even neglected. I have set out right these wrongs and give some attention to those left behind.**

**But back to business; I would like to thank all the reviewers/followers/favoriters for taking their time to read Phantom Pain. Already is this story nearing 5000 hits and I just wish I could send you all a cookie. I won't of course, that would be hella expensive, but a man can hope right?**

**The amount of Americans reading is astounding and I am sorry for mostly using a metric system that makes sense (Just kidding) therefore: 1 feet is 30 centimetres, 1 mile is ~1.6 km and a yard is ~90 centimeters.**

**I've got another reference hidden in here. Well, if you've read RA it should be pretty damn obvious. Please tell me if ya found it!**

**Don't forget you can submit ideas to me and reviews help me improve on my writing and the story overall.**

**Enjoy**

* * *

~Chapter 7~

**3 weeks ago, Mars, Orbital docks  
1243 hours local time**

Gus couldn't believe it, after one year in the Marine corps he had been chosen to become a Helljumper. A _Helljumper_, the most badass soldiers of the UNSC, well except for SPARTANs maybe. Training had been brutal, and about 70 percent of the recruits hadn't made it.

He looked at his forearm to see the freshly tattooed image of the ODST logo; a SOEIV with a flaming skull and a scroll at the bottom that had four words written on it; _Feet first into Hell_.

He was wearing his all black ODST fatigues, a tight black t-shirt with 'ODST' written on it in big white lettering, a pair of black cargo pants and black combat boots. All in all a very intimidating sight that was all the more intimidating because of the reputation of Helljumpers being crazy bastards.

And now he was going on his first deployment as one of the Marine corps' elite soldiers aboard the Marathon II _William of Orange_.

He was shaken out of his thoughts when a blur of black hair almost tackled him in a hug. He chuckled an hugged his little sister back. "Hey Em."

His 16 year-old sister broke the hug, "Gus, we missed you sooo much! You're taller." She stated the last thing rather than asking it.

"yes, I got some small augmentations after- wait, we? Is mom here too?"

"Yes, of course!" she answered as if he had just said something really stupid, "She wouldn't let you go without saying goodbye."

"Of course, of course. Now where is she?"

A tall woman with long black hair, the same black as he and his sister had, turned the corner as if looking for someone and smiled when she saw her son and daughter.

"Mom," he hugged her too, "How are you?"

"I'm fine Gus, thank you. How are _you_?" she asked in return.

"Well, training was brutal, but I survived."

She showed a small smile and hugged her son again. After she let go, he turned to his sister and saw he holding hands an South-American looking boy her age who looked kind of nervous and he narrowed his steel grey eyes.

"Gus-" his mother tried to say something, but the newly trained ODST cut her off.

"Emily, who is that?" he said, not looking away from the boy.

"Bro, calm down, this is Rico, my boyfriend."

"And how long has he been your 'boyfriend'?" he asked while making air quotes at the word boyfriend.

She looked down at her feet and mumbled something. "What did you say?"

She spoke a bit louder now, "Two weeks after you left for training."

Gus raised an eyebrow and he suddenly changed from threatening to happy, "Well, good for you! Why didn't you tell me?"

"So you're okay with us dating then?" Rico asked.

"Oh hell no, but there's not that much I can do about it from space is there?" after he said that his mother and sister both looked visibly relieved and Rico looked like he was going to get down on his knees and send a thankyou prayer to whatever god(s) he believed in.

The intercom suddenly crackled to life, *The _UNSC William of Orange _will depart in 15 minutes, all personnel please sign in and board.*

"That's my flight, I'll miss you." he hugged his mother and his sister and then shook Rico's hand a little more firmly than necessary and bent forward so that only he could hear what he said, "If you hurt Emily I'll personally snap your wrist, understood?" the boy just nodded and visibly gulped. Gus patted him on the back with a smile, "But I'm sure that won't happen."

He took a step back and took in the family in front of him. His mother, his sister, his sister's boyfriend. Slowly he turned around and made his way over to the check-in.

* * *

**Present**

Gus looked at the picture in his hands. He, his mom, his sister and his dad when he was still alive, sitting on a comfortable couch with a lot of shredded wrapping paper around them and a Christmas tree in the back. He sighed, would he see them again? He was in a different galaxy now and he had no idea if they would be able to return.

"That your family?" a young ranger asked, he remembered his name, Will Barton, as he sat down next to the Helljumper.

Gus glanced at him, he couldn't be much older than him, perhaps 23- 24 years old. "Yeah, got any at home yourself?"

"No, I was raised as an orphan, joined the military as soon as I could. I have a few friends from the orphanage that are practically family, but nah, not really."

"Aren't you Oaken squad? I heard Sergeant O'Carric is a real hardass, they say he never smiles."

Will chuckled, "Yeah, but he's been sort of a mentor to me ever since I joined Oaken. If you get past all the insults and sarcasm, he's really a good man."

Gus was about to say something but was interrupted by a transmission from Miranda, "Hey Mir, what's up?" he could afford to be more lose around her, he'd actually befriended her in the weeks they had been stationed on the ship.

*Gus, can you explain to me why Ratha is sleeping in my cot?* she said with annoyance clear in her voice.

"Well, she was panicked after the whole commotion in the hangar, so I put on The Lion King and after a while she fell asleep."

*Alright, but why _my_ bed?*

"You're the only one that wouldn't beat me up for it."

*Even Emma?*

"Especially Emma."

Miranda grumbled a bit, *I'll get you back for this.*

"Of course you will." He cut the call and noticed Will looking at him with one arched eyebrow. "It's not like that." He quickly said.

"I'm sure it's not. I have to go to the war room for a debrief, cya." He said and walked away and Gus could see him lightly shaking his head in mock disapproval.

Gus rolled his eyes again. _Dammit!_

He decided to go to the gym, but before he could even set a single step out of the common room, Edward appeared in front of him.

"Dammit Ed! You scared the crap outta me."

The AI smiled, "Captain Hallsson has requested you to come to his office, it's about the girl."

"Alright, should I bring her with me?"

"That won't be necessary." The AI waited for the private to leave, "Any time before noon would suffice Swanson." Edward said as he noticed the private drift off into thought.

Gus didn't know if he had to salute the AI so he simply nodded before quickly making has way over to the captain's office.

* * *

After about seven minutes he made is to a door guarded by two marines baring the nameplate; [Captain Andrew M. Hallsson], and knocked.

"Come in." came the muffled reply from the inside of the office.

The door opened with an almost inaudible hiss and he entered the simply decorated room. Several bookshelves stood on one side and a few pictures hung from the walls. In the middle of the room stood a simple metal desk with several items on it, some more pictures, a few empty mugs, a stack of actual paper, _Who even still uses that?_ ,and a small model of the _Orange_. At the desk sat his captain in a leather office chair and a beautiful view of the planet they were orbiting was visible through the window behind him.

Gus saluted and clicked his heels together, to which the captain saluted back half-heartedly. It was clear Hallsson was tired by the way he moved and the large bags under his eyes.

"Take a seat, will you. I'm too tired for fucking formalities." He motioned towards the other chair across from him and Gus sat down on the comfortable leather cushions.

"I've asked you to come here because I've talked with the Jedi on Naboo about whatshername and asked if he could take her to the Jedi temple."

The look of confusion on Gus' face must have been obvious, because Hallsson immediately explained it to him.

"Sooooo… what Ratha did in the hangar is called the Force and there is an entire order of warrior monks based around it? With all due respect sir, but how hard did you hit your head in the hangar?"

The captain sent a withering glare at the private who immediately shrunk away and apologised.

"We found it in the data from the invaders' ship and from the Planet's own databanks." He explained.

"Then what did he say?" Gus asked. "Sir."

Hallsson sighed and even had the decency to look a bit sad, "She's too old, they won't take her in."

"Then what do we do sir? She's got nowhere to go."

"She's lost her parents, I get that, but this is still a military ship and we can't have children running around here." Gus looked disappointed. "But. There is a danger in the force if she is not trained and, it pains me to say this, but if we're stuck here for long our own Jedi could come in very handy. I am willing to allow her on the ship on the condition that she is trained. I've already asked M'tar 'Vadum to teach her to fight with an energy sword and he accepted, albeit with a bit of reluctance."

The young private was stunned. Both because his captain would see her as a useful _asset_, as if she wasn't even human and because a Sangheili had accepted to teach a human. It had happened before, but not very often. The energy sword was still the most sacred of weapons of the Sangheili race.

"She trusts you, don't fuck it up private."

And with that Gus stood up, saluted and went to the common room. He could use a nice cold beer right now.

* * *

**10 days later, Mars, New Paris  
1923 hours local time.**

Emily was laying on the couch watching a sitcom. She had no idea why she was watching it, it wasn't really funny at all, but it helped her not think about school and relax a little. She still had to think what to ask for her birthday_. Maybe one of those retro phones? No, I just got a new one. A gun? Mom wouldn't allow it. Maybe Gus could by me one. New clothes. Yeah that'd work, you never have enough clothes. A trip to Disneyland on Earth? No, too expensive. I wonder what Gus would get me. Speaking off, I haven't had a video message from him in a while. Meh, he's probably just busy with secret government stuff. He said he would make it for my birthday though, only one more month._

She was ripped away from that train of thought by her mother asking her if she could turn on the news from the kitchen, so she quickly switched channels. The man was talking about some boring financial thingy and she didn't really pay attention.

She noticed her mother standing in the living room holding a pan filled with raw potatoes and her sparse interest was drawn in by the next item and she turned up the volume a bit.

"We have gotten news that around a week ago a task group consisting of two cruisers, one UNSC and one USC, has disappeared off the radar completely while investigating a moon on the frontier. It is unsure what happened and a UNSC-USC fleet has already secured the system. There are no signs of battle and nothing except huge amounts of radiation from an apparent slipspace jump has been found. Remote records show no indication that neither of the ships executed a command for a jump. We can only assume it was an accident and even though the location is highly classified the moon is already being called Bermuda by people on mass media. UNSC and USC officials wouldn't let lose any more information except for the names of the two missing cruisers and a list of those aboard said ships."

Emily had a strange feeling of dread in her stomach, like she knew what the anchor-man was going to say.

"The missing sips are the Battlecruiser _Unbending Justice, _captained by Kiyo' Mantakrea and the Marathon II-class heavy cruiser _William of Orange_, captained by Andrew Hallsson. This is what the government officials had to say…"

Emily zoned out. The _William of Orange_. That was the ship her brother was on. The brother that had always loved her, the one she played games with, the one who raised her after their dad died and their mom went into a depression, the mighty Helljumper who had been so excited when he told them the news of him being accepted for the ODSTs, the brother who had always protected her and even intimidated her boyfriends into buying her gifts. He was gone now. It was not certain what happened, but it was pretty clear what the UNSC had left unsaid when they gave out the list of names. 'Assume that they are dead.'

she looked at her mother who still stood stunned. She had dropped the pan as soon as the name of the ship was said.

* * *

**Tell me if I should do more first-person POVs.**

**Hope you enjoyed and may the Chief be with you.**


	8. Chapter 8: Goodbyes

**Welcome! I'm sorry for the short chapter, but I wanted to post something so ya'll knew I'm not dead. Sorry it took a while, school's been really busy and I didn't really have a whole lot of inspiration. I rewrote this thing twice, then I deleted it entirely because I didn't like the direction it was taking and wrote this.**

**Thank you all for all the reviews, favourites and follows.**

**P.S. I just found out that the new Metal Gear game will be called Phantom Pain, so well… fuck. I didn't rip it off, 'swear. Also, don't forget you can still give me suggestions for stuff, I don't really care what it is.**

**Hope you enjoy.**

* * *

~Chapter 8~

**07:35 Earth time, Orbit around Naboo**

Andrew looked around at the commanding officers of both ships in the meeting room. Of course those from the _Unbending Justice _were not really there, but in the meeting room of their own ship and were projected by means of several hardlight emitters around the room. They were there to discuss the next course of action in this new galaxy.

_Didect's balls, they're like a bunch of squabbling children._ He sent a pleading glance at Kiyo', but she just sent an amuse one back. He sighed in defeat and turned to Edward's hologram. "Ed, if you would please play file 445689."

"Of course, sir, I would advise you to cover your ears." Two seconds later, the sound of someone screeching their nails over a chalkboard shreiked over the speakers and all but he cringed at the horrible sound that had been stopping arguments since the chalkboard was invented.

"Alright, now that I have your attention, we can really start this meeting without everybody screaming at each other. Any suggestions for a possible course of action?"

The Shipmistress spoke up, "I would suggest setting up a long-term base of operation on the ground. Perhaps on a planet in this 'Outer Rim'."

Lieutenant Colonel Jean-Pierre Deralioux of the Marine battalion aboard the _Orange_ quickly found a problem with that; "And how are we supposed to get food and water? Our hydroponics can only sustain us for so long and the soldiers will eventually grow tired of eating vat-grown meat."

"The Colonel is right, not to speak of the fact that we do not have the resources to establish a long-term base." An Uggnoy Major added. "Perhaps we can buy the materials."

The Marine Colonel scoffed, "We'll need money to buy food, supplies, and water, somehow I don't think they'll accept our currency. Unless y'all find a way to make some credits, I'd say we're all pretty damn fucked."

An idea started to form in Andrew's head and a smile formed on his lips, "Perhaps we already have a solution to that problem."

Kiyo' gave him a quizzical look, "If you would enlighten the rest of us, Captain Hallsson."

"Remember what we told the Nabooians? That if the Senate asked, we were a mercenary group from the Outer Rim."

"Sir? Certainly we won't put our forces up for hire. Have you forgotten this is still a UNSC ship? We cannot do that!" Deralioux objected.

"Bah, we are no honourless mercenaries." A Sangheili Major snarled, "We will not disgrace our families by leaving the coalition in such a despicable act."

"Listen, I get that you may feel resentment for mercenaries, but there are not many other options. We will certainly not leave our respective factions and we will certainly not disgrace any families by trying to survive."

"What about Naboo? Surely they will help us."

"Do not forget they just came out of an invasion, they will need time to rebuild. We cannot ask them to help us while they are in such position." Apparently Kiyo' still supported the idea.

"I agree with the captain and Shipmistress, we need the money and places to dock. The crew can't live on the ships forever, we'll need some time to 'stretch our legs', get some shore time." This time it was Anna Lintegren, the chief engineer, that added her two cents.

Another Sangheili spoke up, "I may have a solution for a base of operations. We have all read the reports, there seems to be much pirate activity in this galaxy. We would do well to eradicate the honourless scum and take possession of their base and equipment."

"Alright, I think we should put it to a vote. All in favour of becoming a temporary mercenary company; say Aye, all against; say Nay."

The only ones to vote against the proposal were Deralioux and the Sangheili commander that had spoken against it in the first place.

"Good, I propose the _William of Orange _goes to this 'Coruscant' the Nabooians told us about to establish us as a merc group while the _Unbending Justice_ goes to the nearest pirate base to secure that for us. Now all we need is a name." the young captain said.

"Sir, what about Orion Operatives, we are from that part of the Milky Way after all." Edward said.

"Anyone opposed? No? Orion it is then."

* * *

"Chamber round!" the ODST lieutenant ordered.

The sound of seven rifle bolts that shot in place was deafening.

"Firing position!"

Seven ODSTs placed their feet at shoulder width and held their rifle ready.

"Aim!"

The Helljumpers each raised their rifle so that they were pointed over the empty casket.

"Fire!"

Seven rifles fired and the seven shots merged together into one loud boom. She cringed at the sound, being reminded of all the times Gus had taken her to the shooting range. The sun was warm, surprisingly warm for the usual weather on mars, and shone mercilessly down on her black dress.

"Chamber round!"

The sound of seven empty casings hitting the grass vibrated through the military graveyard.

"Aim!"

She glanced at the Marines and Helljumpers in their spotless white and black dress uniforms almost shining in the midday sun as they held the tight salute.

"Fire!"

She grabbed her mother's hand, providing comfort for both of them. Rico's hand found hers as well, he hadn't really known he brother, but his presence helped.

"Chamber round!"

Tears flowed freely from her eyes, creating black lines from her mascara.

"Aim!"

She looked at the white gravestone inscribed with his name and rank; _PFC Gus Emile Swanson, ODST._

"Fire!"

Gus' previous lieutenant slowly folded the UNSC flag into a triangle and with three graceful steps he was stood before her mother, handing the crying woman the flag and saluting.

A Helljumper stepped towards the coffin and folded the remaining flag, it was crimson red with a yellow outline and a pod with a skull in the middle, exactly the same as her brother had had on his arm. Claire, their mother, had been so angry with him.

She saw the ODST slowly walking towards her with the red-and-yellow flag folded in a triangle. He extended his arms and she took the flag with shaking hands, having to release her boyfriend's to hold it.

The ODST put a reassuring hand on her shoulder, "I- ehm… I didn't know your brother for a very long time, but I knew him in boot camp and he was a good man, a good Helljumper. Stay strong, okay?" ,he saluted as well.

She nodded in between sobs and the man turned around and took his place amongst his comrades again and as the casket was lowered in the grave, they started to sing.

"_When I die please bury me deep!_

_Place an MA5 down by my feet!_

_Don't cry for me, don't shed a tear!_

_Just pack my box with PT gear!_

_Cuz early morning 'bout zero-five,_

_The ground will rumble,_

_There'll be lightning in the sky!_

_Don't you worry, don't come undone!_

_It's just my ghost on a PT run!_

* * *

**Well… wasn't that depressing. I took some hints from the ODST live action trailer and a piece of Casquis' **_**The Life**_**. Also, check out Rilwen-Shadowflame's _Stormtrooper_, it really changed my view on those guys.**

**May the Chief be with you.**


	9. Chapter 9: Coruscant

**A/N at the back.**

* * *

~Chapter 9~

_Well fuck me sideways with an energy sword. It actually _is_ one big city._

_-First Lieutenant O'Malley, upon arriving at Coruscant._

One of the bad things about being a Captain was the bureaucracy. Almost endless amounts of paperwork, logistics to organize, and the crew to take care of just came on top of that.

He was reminded of this by the two days he had spent filing the paperwork for the instatement of Orion Operations as an official PMC, or Private Military Company. Basically a Mercenary group, but more fancy.

Edward had been a major help in this, skimming through the documents and filling in those that he didn't need to do personally. Because of this he was now the official leader of a new PMC in this galaxy that had already garnered quite a bit of fame from saving Naboo.

On top of that he had been asked to do a declaration in front of the senate about what happened on the besieged planet by queen Amidala. Apparently the senate hadn't done shit about the crimes of the Trade Federation. Oh how he hated politicians. And especially the Senate. _Bunch of corrupt fools._

And as he stood, waiting besides the queen to announce him to the rabble that called itself a government, he was thinking if he had done the right thing in helping. _I could have saved my men, instead we chose to go in guns blazin' without foreknowledge of the situation. We could have walked into an intergalactic war. I will never do that again._ But he had saved a planet, and that was at least a good thing.

"I hereby present Captain Andrew Hallsson, captain of the _William of Orange_, leader of Orion Operations, and one of the saviors of Naboo together with Shipmistress Kiyo' Mantakrea of the _Unbending Justice_." Amidala spoke over the microphone while the pod floated slowly towards the middle of the massive chamber.

"Captain, I have the upmost gratitude for you for saving my planet. It is an honor meeting you. It is sad, though, that the Shipmistress couldn't be here." The Chancellor said with a warm tone.

"Don't worry, Chancellor, we only did what we thought was right. Shipmistress Mantakrea sends her regards by the way."

"It is good to hear that there are still people around that do things out of the kindness of their heart."

Suddenly, the pod bearing the Trade Federation's delegation drifted forwards, "THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!" the Senator yelled, "I demand you seize this man and his ship immediately!"

_Why do they even let corporation have a voice in the Senate? This galaxy is going to hell._ Andrew thought and the Chancellor was quick to speak up against the stupid space-toad, "And dare say, senator, why would I do that?"

"He and his accomplices destroyed equipment worth millions of credits and disrupted a lawful blockade!"

"Ha! Lawful my ass! I have seen what you did to the people of Naboo. If anything, it should be the Trade Federation that is punished for crimes against sentience!" He really didn't feel like talking to the stuck-up space toad anymore.

A loud gasp of surprise went through the entire senate, apparently it was quite the crime he had accused the Trade with, even Amidala seemed a bit surprised by it. "On what ground do you accuse the Trade Federation with such a grave crime?" the Chancellor asked calmly.

With a signal to Edward, the giant hologram above the Chancellors seat came online and showed a picture which seemed like it was taken from the eyes of a soldier. "This, senators, is footage captured by the 513th Ranger Platoon, tasked with freeing civilians from designated "work camps". Play the video, Ed."

The image started moving, showing the soldier gunning down a couple of battledroids in front of a large gate. One of the other black-visored soldiers put half a block of C-7 where the two sliding doors connected and stuck a detonator in it. After he had walked a good fifteen meters away, the thing blew up and an armored vehicle drove through the breach, followed by rangers using it a cover.

The view switched to one of the front soldiers as they advanced from behind the –now stationary- vehicle. The soldier moved up a couple of paces before a red laser whizzed by their face. A few bangs later, all the remaining droids were taken care of and the soldier moved up to the containment area.

The next image filled the senate with gasps and cries of shock and outrage. There were hundreds of men, women, and children, all of them underfed and dirty. Most of them had bruises or other untreated wounds and there were plenty of dead bodies lying around.

The senate also saw how several soldiers hurried over to the wounded and start to treat them. Other soldiers were handing out food to the now freed Nabooians while others were making sure they wouldn't fight over it.

When the holo blinked out, a large part of the senate -meaning almost every self-respecting senator not tied to the Trade Federation or Techno Union- started demanding a trial. At this point, though, Andrew was drawn from the verbal slaughter by a transmission from Sgt. Richard Burke, *Capt'n, there's a rather persistent bloke here askin' you to come with 'im. Says some or other "Jedi Council" wishes to speak to you. I've tried to send him away, but he keeps insisting. A bit more than would be healthy for 'im.* The last part was obviously aimed at said "bloke".

The captain sighed. ODST were great bodyguards and special forces, but they had the diplomatic subtly of a Jiralhanea during mating season and a Mgalekgolo who just lost his bond-brother and were as easily offended as a highborn Sangheili. "Tell the man I will be right there. And sergeant."

*Yes, sir?*

"Please don't kill him before I get there."

*Aye, sir. Burke out.*

He quickly notified the Queen he was leaving and had Edward forward her all the evidence against the Trade before leaving the now-docked pod and heading for the door which whooshed open with a barely audible hiss. Behind said door stood ODST squad Zulu, their guns pointed peacefully at the ground, but Andrew knew they could raise them, aim and fire a shot in less than a second.

Those ODST where watching the movement of each passer-by coming through the hall, including the alien teen with two tentacles instead of hair and wearing robes that were typical of a Jedi who was nervously looking around, avoiding the silver-reflective gaze of the eight towering soldiers he couldn't feel in the force.

Hallsson decided to spare the boy more uncomfortable time and made himself known with a little cough and the nervous teen's eyes quickly shot to him. "Eh, are you mister Hallsson?"

"I sure am, kid. Now, I heard something about the Jedi Council wanting to speak to me. May I inquire why they decided to interrupt me in an important diplomatic meeting?"

"I-I don't know sir. They only told me to get you. I, ehm, I-"

"Don't worry, kid, I'll come with you. To be honest I had wanted to meet them for quite a while now. I have some questions for them as well. Now, lead the way. We don't want to keep them waiting, do we?" Andrew sent him his warmest smile, gesturing for Burke and the rest of Zulu to follow them.

"So, kid, aren't you a little young to be a Jedi?" the captain asked with genuine intrest.

"Oh, eh, I'm not actually a Jedi. Not yet at least. I'm still a Padawan."

"Of course. Sergeant, message the pilot to get the pelican running, if I'm going to temple I want to at least take our own transport."

* * *

"The Council will speak to you now, Captain." The Jedi Padawan said and opened the door to Andrew, who was without his guards because apparently the Jedi were a bunch of peace loving hippies. Sgt. Burke's words, not his.

It was not like he was without a backup plan anyway. There were five _Goose_ Stealth Insertion Craft cloaked and ready to jump into action and get him out of any sticky situation that might develop.

He stepped into the circular room, admiring the view they had on Coruscant through the large windows for a few seconds before turning his attention to the gathered Jedi Masters.

"Captain Hallsson, good to finally meet you, it is." A little green alien who Andrew (with a little help from Ed) identified as Grandmaster Yoda. Next to him was a sour-looking human with a dark complexion who the young captain immediately picked out as a possible cause for problems down the line.

"It is good to be here, Master Jedi. I understood you have some questions?" he said, with his most innocent smile on his face.

"Yes, Captain Hallsson, why don't you start with explaining why you don't have a Force-signature." The Black-skinned human said rather bluntly.

"I'm sorry sir, you seem to have me at a disadvantage…" Andrew sent him a bright smile, but his eyes turned stone-cold.

"Master Windu, now if you could please answer my question."

"Well, Master Window, I'll be honest with you. I have absolutely no idea." It might have been a childish move, mispronouncing his name, but they could think it was just his accent and he really did not like the man.

Yoda decided it was time to intervene, "Hmm, a mystery, it is. Nothing, the Force reveals about you."

"Yes, it is. May I ask a question now?" the captain's face turned stone-hard and continued before anyone could object. "I mean no disrespect, but can someone please tell me why you are _kidnapping children_?!"

It was Master Windu who answered, "We do not kidnap children, we take them in and teach them the ways of the Jedi so that they do not fall for the temptations of the Dark-side."

Andrew huffed, but forced himself to calm down a bit. "Tell me, _Master _Window; do these children have a choice? Or their parents for that matter?"

"Enough!" a Master with a strangely large forehead bellowed, "The way we recruit Jedi is not the subject of this meeting!"

"Right Master Mundi is, but find peace he should." Yoda said while sending a pointed look at the other Master. "Another question we have, Captain Hallsson. Of the girl you found on Naboo, we want to hear."

"A, yes, the ten year-old orphan you didn't want to "take in" because she is too old." He looked around the council chambers, noting the variety in species, though some where there through means of a hologram. "I am happy to say that she and my crew have quickly taken a liking to each other. What do you want to know about her?"

"We would just like to know how she is dealing with losing her family. It can be hard to cope at her age." A woman with orange skin and strange horns and tentacles instead of hair said. Edward helped him identify her as a Togruta.

"Our ship shrink says Ratha is dealing with it incredibly well, apart from some nightmares. Health-wise she is still recovering, but progressing slowly as the days tick by."

"That is good to hear." The woman said. "But it is also important that she learns to control her gift. Therefore this council has requested to place a Jedi on board your ship to teach her some basics of the Force."

"Absolutely not."

The Togruta woman blinked in surprise. "What?"

"Absolutely not. My ship is a warship, designed especially to destroy other ships as fast and brutally as possible. The same counts for my men and their weapons. It is no place for –as sergeant Burke so wonderfully says it- peace-loving hippies. No disrespect, of course. I also have people capable of training her. So, no, I will not have some random Jedi on my ship. Especially if they could leak information and tech to outside parties."

Windu scowled at his remark, taking a deep breathe to start another rant, but Yoda cut him off. "A compromise, we may find then? Hmmm." He looked thoughtful for a moment. "Once every year, checked on by a Jedi she could."

"Fine, but not on my ship."

*Captain, I've got someone looking to hire us. His name is Mhka Calrost, the senator of Radhoka.* Edward spoke.

"Excuse me, Councilors, but business calls. I'll have Edward forward you our contact details so that we can continue this conversation on a later date."

Yoda just nodded in reply, "Contact you soon, we will. May the Force be with you, Captain Hallsson."

"And the Mantle with you, Grandmaster Yoda." He said as he turned around and made his exit.

*Well done, chap. Very smooth.* Edward said mockingly *Maybe you should have threatened them as well, Perhaps pulled a gun.*

"Very funny, Edward. That did remind me of something, though. Activate Wilson Directive and see if you can get a report from Kiyo'. Are all the crew and combat personnel aboard?"

*Wilson Directive Is now active and the Shipmistress' report is waiting on your desk. Well, not _on_ your desk, of course, but in your inbox. Bar the personnel on the Geese and your escort everybody has been counted for. I find it necessary to note that Staff Sergeant Gerard and Lance Corporal Metford almost got robbed while returning. They informed me that they handled it and that the people who robbed them wouldn't try that again, since, and I quote: "It's difficult to mug someone when you can't walk.". ODSTs scare me sometimes, sir.*

Andrew let out a small chuckle, "That's what they are supposed to do, Ed. Did they get in trouble with local authorities?"

*Negative, sir. They got away before anyone saw them.*

"Good," he whispered into his earpiece, "Activate the SPIDRs as soon as we're on the Pelican."

*Aye, aye, captain, have a good flight.* Edward said and inside the Jedi temple, the senate building, and several other important locations such as traffic control and the police HQ, a number of small balls started unfolding, turning into small spider-like cameras.

The SPIDRs, or Synthetic Proactive Intelligence Drone Recon, all quickly scurried into hiding spots, setting up for a long, long watch.

* * *

**Alright, I'll start off by saying how incredibly thankful I am for the massive amount of reviews, favorites and follows. Thankyouthankyouthankyyouthankyou! It makes my day each time I see one of those messages pop into my inbox. Second is thanks to Smoke Tiny Tom for Beta-ing. Third is another massive Hoorah; Phantom Pain broke the 10,000 view mark! Now onto 20k!**

**I would also like to apologize for not updating so long. I had a metric shit-ton of exams and then school finally ended and I was hit with a massive tidal wave of laziness. That combined with my old laptop crashing set held this up quite a bit. luckily I had a backup un a USB. I have to say, though, that writing the Jedi Council part was very enjoyable.**

**For anyone who has submitted an OC and hasn't seen him/her/them appear, don't worry. They'll show up when the plot allows for it. I will not be throwing random OC's at the readers out of nowhere.**

**As for next time (probably): You'll see what Kiyo' has been up to, what the new job will be and you'll meet the Shriek Hawks (Mandalore of freedom's OC's). Also some Gamma and Ratha If I can squize it in there.**

**Codex:**

**SPIDR**

**Synthetic Proactive Intelligence Drone Recon. Usually used for espionage by the Bureau of Galactic Intelligence, but also equipped to the Exploration and Quick response version of the Marathon II-class Heavy Cruiser.**

**LR-87-SIC Goose**

**The Goose is a long-range stealth insertion craft, capable of slipspace and about twice as large as a pelican dropship. It is equipped with a cloak field, hardlight weaponry, a nose-mounted auto-cannon, hardlight emitters, and a 'dumb' AI. Mostly used by the Bureau of Galactic Intelligence, it is not meant for prolonged combat, but can withstand a fair amount of fire.**

**It has been in service ever since 2597 and was developed by former ONI scientist Nicholai K. Kozlov, who died in an insurrection attack three years later. Only the best pilots with at least five years of experience in a pelican are accepted into the specialized training required for operating the LR-87-SIC.**

**The miniaturised version of a reverse-engineered forerunner drive has a huge speed advantage over most other ships, enabling it to outrun most other vessels. A combination of this and the cloak field makes it the perfect insertion craft or even a scout ship when drones are not available.**


	10. Chapter 10: Hopping

**Welcome to the next big milestone for Phantom Pain! Chapter 10! It just really warms my heart to see all the amazing support this story is getting. As I am writing this it has 68 favs, 99 follows, 43 reviews and a total of 13.359 total views. This boils down to approximately 2800 people who have read the entire thing through.**

**I want to thank everybody for your support, especially SmokeTinyTom who has been proof-reading this story for a while now. The reason I didn't let him do it this time is because I wanted it to come as a surprise. Furthermore I want to apologise to The Mandalore Freedom for promising to introduce his OCs in this chapter. They will come into play in the next one, that is a Gustah Guarantee.**

**This chapter will be mostly character development. I noticed Grul has been ignored and since M'tar will be training Ratha eventually, I thought I should give him some screen time.**

**I hope you enjoy!**

* * *

~Chapter 10~

"Navigator, how far are we from the Pirate base?" Kiyo' asked the Sangheili officer. Those raiding scum wouldn't even know what hit them, the honourless bastards.

"We are ten minutes away from exiting slipspace, Shipmistress." He answered dutifully, causing Kiyo' to spread her mandibles in a grim smile. _There is no better target practice than pirates._ She thought.

She looked back down at her holotable. Imagery captured by drones had shown a pirate base hidden in an asteroid field with two old looking frigates guarding the station, no match for her brand new battlecruiser.

The harder part was taking over the station itself without either them or the pirates themselves blowing it, as the humans so wonderfully said, sky-high. They had such a wonderful language. Difficult, yes, but also full of figurative speech and idioms. Growing up on a mixed race colony had thankfully helped her grasp English rather fast.

The plan was to sneak in two SpecOps squads; one to take the reactor and one to take the control-centre. Once those were taken, she would drop her forces in the hangar and some Sangheili Rangers on the outside to enter through the airlocks. The troops in the hangar would be supported by three of her eight Mgalekgolo pairs and some Kig-Yar snipers. _Hunters, they were called in the Great War. I can understand why._

From there they would push through the hallways and systematically wipe to scum off the face of that asteroid. She didn't mind Andrew was at the Coruscant, let him deal with politics, she always enjoyed a good fight better than a debate. Her ship had more ground forces anyways.

"Mistress, we are entering real-space in five seconds!" an Unggoy ensign called out in his race's tell-tale squeaky voice.

"Good, prepare energy shields and ready plasma torpedo tubes one to six. I want those two frigates out of the way before you can count to ten!" she shouted out as the blue swirling of slipspace made place for the starry background of what was the Corathin Cluster. Before her, two frigates –surprised by her sudden entry- tried to twist to meet the _Unbending Justice_ with their lasers.

"Target the left frigate, hold, FIRE!" she ordered as the portside tubes glowed brighter and three blobs of superheated plasma left them at a high velocity, easily locking onto the old frigate. It tried to evade the torpedoes by diving down, but they followed effortlessly and made contact with the relatively small ship, overwhelming it's shields quickly.

Kiyo' watched with morbid satisfaction as two of the three projectiles impacted on the engines and the third one with the bridge. It didn't last long until it violently exploded, creating a miniature sun before dissipating completely, leaving only molten wreckage floating aimlessly in the vacuum of space.

"Starboard torpedoes, fire!" she shouted again as red bolts started impacting on the shields, not really doing any damage. As another volley of plasma disabled the frigate before it too exploded, leaving no time for its crew to get to the escape pods.

"Launch Seraphs, let them make sure it is clear before the boarding craft take off." Her second in command, a Sangheili by the name of R'tas Aram, named after the Fleetmaster famous for his actions in both the Great Schism, the Kig-Yar Rebellions and the still ongoing Storm War, nodded in confirmation and relayed her orders over the intercom. _It is to the brave ground forces now to bring us victory._ she thought as the pirate fighters were being obliterated by the superior Type-31 Seraph Starfighters.

* * *

Back in the days of the Human-Covenant War, or the Great war as it is mostly called these days, one of most feared situations for a soldier, marine or trooper could find himself in was close quarters with a Mgalekgolo, or as the UNSC called them; Hunters.

There was a very good reason for that. These beasts, weighing at an approximate 4.800 kilos and measuring at least 3.7 meters high were equipped with an almost indestructible shield and a fuel-rod cannon. And as if that wasn't scary enough, there is always two of them.

Now imagine these poorly equipped and trained pirates seeing not one, not two, but three pairs storming at them, firing explosive green plasma at them while their friends were being taken out by snipers and two and a half meter tall aliens none of them had seen ever before.

It was a bloodbath.

Not one of the pirates in the hanger survived past the first two minutes of combat, after which the ground complement of the _Unbending Justice _split up and started clearing out the hallways, leaving no one alive to tell the tale.

"Shipmistress, the hangar and 70 percent of the station is cleared. SpecOps have taken the reactor, but the command station was better defended than we expected. Major 'Karut guarantees it will be ours in a maximum of ten minutes." R'tas Aram said informed her with a respectful nod of his head.

"Good, spare no one. I have no mercy for this scum."

"And the slaves?"

"Slaves? There are slaves on board of that station? Why did you not tell me sooner, Aram?" her face was pulled in a sneer of disgust. Even the old Covenant was against outright slavery.

"My humble excuses, Shipmistress. I was only informed just before I brought you this report and I wrongfully assumed you knew. One of the platoons, I believe it was the 15th Infantry platoon, secured slave quarters. They were wearing bomb collars, but a squad of bomb disposal Unggoy has already disabled them by means of a small EMP burst. The state they were in was… not good." R'tas informed.

"I see, bring them aboard and make sure they are treated for any wounds, be they physical or mental. Anything else?"

Her second looked a bit hesitant for a moment and clicked his mandibles together, "Some of the pirates have children, what should be done with them?"

"How many?"

"Fifteen. Ten of those are younger than sixteen years of age and six are younger than five years."

"Spare those that are younger than eighteen, bring them on board and see if they need treatment."

"It will be done, Shipmistress."

* * *

Koro was confused. From the day the Trandosian slavers had descended onto his home he was sure he would never ne a free man again. His wife and daughter were not with him anymore. He didn't know if they were alive or not, but strangely, for their sakes, he hoped they weren't. That way they would have been saved from a much worse fate. Or maybe they had been bought by a good person and were not living the life of a slave.

_And Jabba will win a pod-race._ The Togruta mentally scoffed at his own foolish thoughts.

Now though, there was a big reptilian warrior standing in front of him, examining him through blue shining eye slits. The same warrior who had broken into the slave quarters –if you could even call it that- and basically melted the flesh off the bones of the two pirates who were guarding them while a third had his way with a young human slave.

That last pirate had received the worst punishment; the warrior had picked up the Twi'lek by the throat and driven his sword slowly through the struggling man. Oh how Koro had enjoyed the screams of one of his former owners as the filth's guts were pierced and cauterised until the strange two-pronged sword was all the way through and the creature deactivated it, letting the body crumple to the floor.

The reptilian appeared to not be alone as four more of them stepped through, followed by small, creatures wearing orange armour and breathing masks. It was soon clear what the little ones were doing- even if he and the rest of the slaves couldn't understand the guttural language the leader was giving.

The little ones placed a small cone on the ground and attached some components from different backpacks, swiftly assembling the strange structure before one of the warriors approached him. Apparently he seemed like the de-facto leader of the slaves.

"The collars on your necks are bombs, no?" he, because with a voice that deep it was obviously male. asked with surprisingly good basic, showing some disgust at their conditions. Koro nodded.

"Yeah, I suppose that's going to get them off us? Don't bother, we already tried so many times. Without the key it'll blow up or just won't come off."

"Do not worry, the device will emit a powerful electro-magnetic pulse which will disable them so we can have them removed safely." The warrior stated as the Unggoy finished putting the device together and took a few steps back before squeaking something to each other and pressing a few buttons and sparks crackled over the surface.

A sphere expanded through the bars of the cage and as soon as it hit him he felt a small electric current run through him before he fell to the ground, unconscious.

* * *

"Dammit, Grul, I'm being flanked, where the hell are you?!" Gus shouted as a bullets pierced the air where his head had been a second ago.

"I am being a bit held up here." The large Sangheili said calmly as he shot a flood form that came a little bit too close for comfort.

"Fuck! There's more coming! I can see Sangheili and Jiralhanae forms from the west." He called out, stomping an infection form.

"We need that drone operational If we are to survive any longer." Grul stated.

*This is Commander Willis of the 2nd Mass, our position has been overrun! Drones are a no-go! I repeat, drones are a no-go!* A voice shouted, distorted over the radio.

"Well, it has been an honour fighting with you, Gus. May you rest well in the afterlife." The warrior said solemnly as he and Gus fought towards each other for a last stand, plasma and bullets felled the infected.

"It has been an honour for me too." the Rookie said, his back against the wall next to Grul, "At least we will go down fighting."

"That we will, brother, that we will."

"Jesus, guys, will you stop being so melodramatic." Emma suddenly shoved herself between them on the couch, snatching the controller out of Gus' hands. "What are you playing anyway?"

"Call of the Covenant. I took it with me from home, and apparently you guys have an entertainment system, so I challenged Grul here to a game of Flood Infestation. We got pretty far as well, wave 34."

Emma raised an eyebrow. "Does Mike know about you two playing videogames?"

"Yes, apparently he's pretty good at it. He didn't want to play Flood though, so I just played a regular game against him. He absolutely destroyed me on Havoc City."

"Well alright then, you got another controller because I'm taking this one."

"Yes, of course. Buckett, can you please bring me the other controller? It's in my quarters."

"Roger, roger, sir." A whiney synthesised voice called out. Said voice belonged to the droid Miranda had reprogrammed to be their –as she called it- "Gamma butler". She had also painted its body like it was wearing a tux and dubbed it Rusty Buckett. He wasn't fast, rather clumsy, and made quite a bit of noise. Gamma didn't really give a shit about that, though. It brought them drinks, that alone was enough to keep it around.

The way their quarters were set up was rather spacy. In the room normally reserved for two platoons, there was only one. They were supposed to pick them up on Reach after the mission, but the freak slipspace accident prevented them from going back.

He slept in a room together with Grul, while M'tar shared one with Louis. Sarge had his own room since he was their leader, the girls slept in one room and no one really knew where Squidward went off to at night.

All the rooms were linked to their own "Gamma Cave". _We really should stop letting Miri name things._ It was a small communal room equipped with a four sitter couch, a holo-screen and an entertainment system that Louis had "liberated" a while ago when they had raided an Innie outpost.

They, being the VSF-squad, acronym for very special forces, were given quarters a bit away from the rest of 74th platoon.

He immediately shot up when he heard a scream. _Oh fuck! How could I forget that!_ Ratha was sleeping on his cot, getting some extra sleep after watching another old movie with Gus the previous evening that escalated into two, and then three movies. And he had just sent a battledroid, modified as it may be, into the room where a young, ten-year-old girl that had seen her family cut down in front of her by the very same droids was sleeping.

He bolted to his room, frantically pressing the button to open the sliding door. Inside, Rusty was lying on the ground and it turned its head towards him. "Master, the little mistress seems to be in distress."

"Get out of here, Buckett." Gus said as he practically shoved it out of his room before looking at his cot, finding Ratha huddled in the corner, hugging her legs to her chest and crying silently.

He sat down next to her and pulled her close to him like he had done with his sister after their dad died. "It's alright, it's alright, he's gone. You're safe, Ratha."

He could feel her shaking as she clung to his arm like a lifeline. "I- I- I-"

"Sssh, breathe in, breathe out. It's all over, you're safe now." Their dad dying was the worst thing to ever happen to his family. Nobody knew how he died, BGI had just shown up at their front door and handed a letter over before leaving just as fast. It was a painful time for the Swanson family. Their mother fell into a deep depression and he almost turned into an alcoholic, but caring for his then ten-year-old sister had taken priority. This was like a déjà vu.

"G-Gus?"

"Yes, Ratha?"

"I want to learn how to fight." It was aid with such determination and conviction that it put a small, sad smile on his face. At the same time though, it was worrying. Everyone knew about the Spartan III's and how they had been recruited from orphans that couldn't think straight. They were offered revenge and they took it with both hands. Hallsson told him what he wanted, but he wanted it to truly be her choice. Not some revenge-driven decision she would come to regret later.

"We'll see, Ratha, we'll see."

* * *

**Well, I have some mixed feelings about this one, but over-all I'm quite satisfied.**

**Next chapter we'll have the Shriek Hawks (for real this time), the job will be revealed, we'll look a bit into Andrew and cows will rain down from the heavens in celebration of me. **

**If you see any spelling mistakes, tell me. If you like/dislike it, tell me why. If you are a Hobbit, tell me. If you have any complaint, tell me.**

**Thanks sooooo much for bearing with me through the first few chapters which weren't very good in my opinion. May the Chief be with you.**


	11. Chapter 11: Moving on

**Hello and welcome back to Phantom pain. I know, I know, it's been a month, but I've been busy and I am extremely sorry. As you will see, I made good on the Gustah Guarantee, though. You'll see a bit of a peak of future plans and there's some Rangers as well.**

**Thanks to everyone who has reviewed, favorited and followed. You guys are absolutely amazing. If it wasn't for you I would have given up on this a long time ago, so thank you. Also, the 100 fav mark is coming up. I might make something special when we hit that, not sure though.**

**I would like to note that even though there are hundreds of recorded planets on the SW wiki, I made one myself because that way I could do my own thing with it.**

**I sent SokeTinyTom the chapter, but he is unable to beta at this time, so I hope I got most of the spelling mistakes out of there.**

**Don't forget you can still submit OCs.**

**[IMPORTANT!] I have rewritten the first chapter, go check it out.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

~Chapter 11~

"So, captain, do you accept this contract?" came the nasal sounding question from the hologram on his desk. It was the senator of Radhoka who asked the question. The man was of a species called Radhok and was a short but sturdy, red skinned alien that had a face like an elephant mated with a Jiralhanea. His planet was dealing with a rebel uprising who were causing panic and chaos through terrorist actions. The worrying thing was that they were gathering a large amount of support from religious groups on the planet, so senator Mhka Calrost had decided to ask the Galactic Republic for help. Apparently, terrorists hiring the Deathwatch to do… terror-stuff was not important enough to warrant even a Jedi to go check it out.

The Republic, though, incompetent fools that they were, had dismissed his pleas for help and outright refused to send any kind of aid. "Yes, this is acceptable for me and my crew. I still don't think we'll need the other company, but extra support is never bad I guess."

"Good, the credits will be sent to your account. 500,000 with 200,000 paid upfront. Thank you, captain, for aiding my people when the Republic wouldn't, even if we have to pay for it. Goodbye, Captain Hallsson."

"That went rather well, chap. Especially if take the meeting with the Jedi Council as a reference. I see a substantial improvement in your negotiating skill, I'm certain one Master_ Window_ would agree." The green AI piped up, taking the spot the senator had just been in.

"Do you actually have anything useful to say, Ed, or are you just going to annoy me?" The young captain said in a tired voice.

"My, someone is grumpy. And yes, I do in fact have something useful to say. One of the mess sergeants was getting ingredients for this "taco Tuesday"… To be honest, sir, I don't think we should call it taco Tuesday, perhaps rubbish-in-a-shell day?"

"You were saying, Ed?" Andrew interrupted the rambling construct.

"*ahem* Yes, as I was saying, the mess sergeant was getting some ingredients and went down to the cargo area to get the taco shells. Imagine his surprise when he stumbled onto this." A picture of an open crate with some sort of armour in it flashed to life next to the green AI.

"Is that… armour?" the captain asked with a confused look on his face.

"SPARTAN grade, to be precise. There is one set of MK V Noble-class Mjolnir Armour, one set of MK VII Infiltrator armour, two sets of the MK XI Mjolnir battlesuit and one set of Mjolnir-Heavy Support armour." The AI 'grabbed' a notebook and looked through it. "I had some marines and engineers check the other crates."

"And…?"

"There is one crate filled to the brim with SPARTAN grade hard-light weaponry, bubble shields, so-on and so-forth. There is enough for a SPARTAN fireteam to take out a small army and I'm sure there's more hidden around the cargo bays."

Hallsson was fuming. Somehow someone had smuggled that equipment on his ship –which was insult enough on itself-, but his gut told him this was going to be a problem all on its own. He didn't have time for shit like that. There was still mountains of paperwork to do before they could set the proverbial sails to meet up with the _Unbending Justice_ and those other mercs near Radhoka.

He rubbed his temples. "Edward, get to the bottom of this. I don't care how long it takes or how many rules you have to break, I want to know why there's SPARTAN grade weaponry and armour aboard my ship."

"Of course sir." Were the AI's parting words.

* * *

"So, what do you think about working with those other mercs, Orion Operations, was it?" Asked the second in command of the Shriek Hawks mercenary army, Tor Farr, to his boss. He was a human dressed in red and silver Mandalorian armour, his helmet held in the crook of his elbow.

Said boss was a merialan woman named Mesh'la Cadera. A Mandalorian in heart and mind and arguably one of the most dangerous women of the galaxy. "We'll just have to see, but as of right now I don't think it will be bad, they did liberate Naboo after all. In how long did they say they would be here?"

"The _Unbending Justice _should arrive within the day. I'm not sure of the _William of orange_, but depending on the speed of their hyper-drive and the lanes they take I suspect they won't be long. Three, four days, most likely."

"Good, my blood is boiling for a fight." She said with a twinkle in her eyes that never failed to make her XO chuckle. She might be one of the most dangerous women in the known galaxy, but she was also his friend from childhood.

They stared out of the windows of the Hammerhead-class cruiser in silence until Mesh'la spoke up. "Would you have ever thought we would be leading our own mercenary army five years ago? I sure as the nine Corellian hells didn't."

"Five years ago we were both barely adults. There were other things on my mind back then."

"Like going to the strip clubs on Hutta and picking up random women from cantinas?"

"Pff, like you never slept with guys or girls you didn't know."

"Oh yeah? Name three times when that happened."

"A twi'lek male on Tatooine, another one on Hutta, a human on Tatooine again, that Togrutan women on Naboo, I guess that threesome with those two human girls on Coruscant count as one… Shall I go on?"

She grumbled something and punched his shoulder playfully, after which they lapsed into another comfortable silence.

"Ma'am, I'm picking up huge amounts of radiation 100 kilometres to our right!" _Well, there goes that._

"Get me a video feed! Everybody, battlestations! Hurry the _kriff_ up you worthless _di'kuti_!"

Before she could yell further orders, however, the radiation readings spiked and a blue portal swirled into life. Out of that portal came a giant dark blue ship. _Fierfek, that thing must be at least five times our size!_

"Ma'am, we are being hailed!" one of the frantic ensigns shouted over the bridge.

"Then connect it to the table, you _di'kut._"

"Language, Mesh'la, language." Tor quipped.

Just as she was about to retort, the image of a tall reptilian alien appeared on her holo-table and spoke with a calming, deep voice that sounded surprisingly feminine. "Greetings, madam Cadera. I am Kiyo' Mantakrea, Shipmistress of the _Unbending Justice_. It is a pleasure to meet you, especially since we will be working together."

She let out a sigh of relief. There were some videos from Naboo, but those had only shown what she suspected was the _William of Orange_, the same ship that had shown up at Coruscant. She was expecting to see something similar in design, blocky and utilitarian, but instead it was made up off organic shapes with a predatory look to it, it screamed beauty and danger at the same time.

This time she would get her revenge on the Deathwatch, she just knew it.

* * *

**2 days later,  
0623 hours, Earth Military Time,  
Orbit above Radhoka  
SpecOps armoury/briefing room Bravo-3**

"Alright, ladies, this is going to be an infiltration mission. Rebels on the ground have been able to get their hands on a fair amount of B1-series battledroids, you know, the scrawny fucks we faced on Naboo." A Caucasian woman said, a serious look in her bright green eyes, almost daring her Rangers to say something before she was done talking.

This woman was Lieutenant Alice Graham, commanding officer of the 513th Army Ranger platoon. She looked around, her gaze softening a bit. _They're still so young_. It was true, a lot of fresh recruits were added to her platoon after the catastrophic mission on Aztlan a year ago. The sergeants were luckily all experienced soldiers who had flown through the gates of hell with her.

There was Halt O'Carric, callsign Greybeard, with Oaken squad, and at 73 years old he had almost 30 years on her in terms of experience. His hair was black with various grey streaks running thought it, a scruffy beard that looked like he cut it with his knife covering a hard face. How the old fuck was doing it, she didn't know. She knew he and Gunnery Sgt. Washington had some history together from fighting the Storm on some backwater colony called Araluen, but where Halt had gone to the Rangers, Mike had been selected for the ODSTs. He was in command of the Recon and sniper cover of the platoon.

Sgt. Mjr, Richard Xander, callsign Kneecap, ten years her junior at thirty-five, was in command of Demolitions and Heavy Weapons. He was an expert marksman and often joined on missions with Oaken when he wasn't needed for leading his own squad, sometimes jokingly called the Cripple Brigade, as they all had at least one prostatic limb or cybernetic implant to replace lost limbs. His Squad preferred the name Ottomans, though.

Ural squad was her regular rifleman and CQC squad. They all carried versions of the AR-500 series and a shotgun with them. They were under command of Master Sgt. Alexei Perkov, callsign Grizzly, the most stereotypical Russian she had ever met. He talked with a thick accent and drank vodka like it was water. She had once asked him why he took this job and he had answered, "In Russia, bullets dodge you." , and didn't say a word more on it.

And then there was Maki squad, her hacking and infiltration group. They were under command of Sgt. Hanna Rusé, newly minted sergeant from the old 513th platoon. She was always cheerful –to annoying levels, if you were to ask Halt- and seemed to transition from military to civilian life without any trouble, even after Aztlan.

Finally, there was Malcolm Hendricks and Joan Williams, her radio operator and medic respectively. She had suspicions of them being a bit closer than regulations allowed, but she really didn't give half a shit if they were banging.

"We will be splitting up into two groups for this one, boys. Oaken, you will be infiltrating the command structure here together with Gamma squad." A building lit up red on the holographic map. "I want you to take out the leadership and see if you can hack the droid controls, Make it a bit easier for the groundpounders and local militia. You will be teaming up with a squad of Mandalorian Shocktroopers, so be sure to say hi to our counterparts for me." The sergeants nodded, a small smile forming on his squad's faces while O'Carric's stayed as stoic as ever.

"Ottomans will sabotage key rebel positions while Ural will use the distraction to clear a dropzone for the Helljumpers here, here, and here, after which you will link up with the 14th Sangheili Ranger lance, Gamma, and oaken and wait for further orders." Three more locations lit up on the map.

"Ehm, ma'am? What of my squad, shouldn't we be going after the droid controls instead?" Rusé asked and the lieutenant let a small smile curl her lips.

"I was going to get to that, sergeant. Maki will be infiltrating the communications relays on the surface and make sure no one calls for help. You will be briefed further in your Pelican."

"Understood, ma'am"

"Good. We'll be facing off against the Deathwatch. They are highly dangerous and versatile, so watch out. We don't know much about them, so when you see them, call in help from Shriek Hawks or air support." She looked around, "What do we do, rangers?"

"Rangers lead the way!" everyone shouted.

"I didn't quite hear that."

"RANGERS LEAD THE WAY, MA'AM!"

"Good, now suit up and get to the birds."

* * *

"WE GO FEET FIRST, SIR!" sounded Gamma's reply to the classic Helljumper question before they were jettisoned out of the ship. Gus could feel the pod start to shake and the interior heating up as they entered the upper atmosphere of the planet.

He looked at the timer. _Three, two, one…_ *Opening drag chute, landfall in fifteen seconds.* His stomach lurched at the sudden loss of velocity as both the drag chute and the thrusters kicked in. He gently fired the thrusters toward the waypoint on his HUD, that being a field not too far north of the capital city of Radhoka.

The bang and shaking of a pod crashing into the field stirred him into action. The previously polarised glass now showed a planet with a beautiful purple sky and lush green grass. He took hold of his AR-507 and mentally prepared himself. He could already see some rebels approaching the pod.

He took a deep breath before Villain finally gave the order, "Alright Gamma, fire at will upon exit. Five, four, three, two, one… engage!"

Seven pods blasted open and a torrent of hardlight rounds found their targets, cutting down the rebels quickly.

"Area clear, good work, Gamma. I think we just set a new record." the Gunny said as they regrouped, an armoured Squidward following Miranda out of her pod.

"Now to wait on Oaken." Emma said, "Of course they're late, those army types are all the same."

"Can it, Archer." Mike growled, sending the sharpshooter a glare through his visor.

Gus chuckled within his helmet and started his perimeter check along the treeline. All seemed clear on his side. Of course he wasn't hoping someone would attack him, but he really wanted to see the capabilities of the fabled mandalorians.

Suddenly a body fell limp in front of him with a throwing knife in its neck and he jumped back in surprise, instantly aiming his gun before he noticed it was dead. "You're welcome." A voice sounded behind him, but this time he whipped around and threw a lightning fast punch into… the trademark black faceplate most Ranger helmets had.

The Ranger, not having expected this was knocked to the ground, "Jesus, dude," the voice of Burton came over his helmet radio, "Great way to thank me. You'd have shattered my nose if it wasn't for my helmet. Is that how you Martians greet your saviours?"

"Will, you fucking asshole, you should know by now not to sneak up on ODST."

"Nah, it's way too funny to see you tough Helljumpers startle like little girls." The always energetic ranger said, earning him a half-hearted glare through Gus' depolarised visor.

"Shut up, Tug, let's get back to the squads."

"You just walk, trooper. I'll be off flying." Will stated with a smile before activating his jetpack and shooting away over the field.

_Fucking cocky fuck._

* * *

**Thank you all for reading. I know that the last bit wasn't really up to standards, but I wanted to get this done.**

**Next chapter you will see things… I'm not really sure what to do actually. I've got loads of ideas, but not ones for this part of the story.**

**May the Chief be with you.**


	12. Chapter 12: Absence

**Bet ya you didn't think you would hear from me anytime soon, did you? Well, here I am! Still alive!  
I apologize deeply for my absence, but life has been coming at me very fast. In between exams, tutoring, gaming, a massive writer's block, and looking what to do with my life after I finish high school there has been very little time for me to write. Well, that might not be entirely true. I did write, but not this story. It is for an amazing DayZ roleplay sever called FalconRP. I will try to put a link to what I wrote in the A/N at the back.  
Anyways, I would like to thank everybody that has faved and followed. 100 Favourites! I can't freaking believe it! You guys are the reason I haven't thrown this in the trash bin yet, even though it may have looked like it cause of my absence.  
Not Betaed, cause I didn't want to let y'all wait any longer.**

* * *

"_We are the Builders and the Destroyers and the Warriors and the Peacekeepers. We build and we destroy, we fight and we guard. We are the sentinels of the void, we fight the forces from beyond. We are the Remembered and Forgotten, for we will always heed the call."_

-SPARTAN V oath/motto

* * *

~Chapter 12~

*I spotted seven foot mobiles incoming on your position, proceed with caution.* the voice of one of Halt's rangers came over the comms.

"Affirmative, we'll take them out if they come too close. Greybeard, how are the rooftops looking?" Villain asked over TEAMCOM, his VISR already marking the outlines of the spotted rebels on his HUD. "Gamma, movement pattern Echo-Three-Niner. Avoid hostiles at all costs."

*Rooftops are clear, Gamma. We're moving up.* Halt said and the Helljumpers saw a glimpse of khaki armour when the rangers jumped to another building.

*Anyone find it strange we haven't seen any of those Deathwatch guys?* Rookie asked.

It was answered by an annoyed British voice, *Belt up, Rookie, you'll jinx us.*

*Oui, it is not very… smart. Zhe last time someone said such things, I almost lost ma tête.* Turtle said in a jolly voice.

*So what you almost lost a tit? You don't even have any to begin with, frenchie.* Archer turned her head to the heavy weapons expert.

*It means my head, you uncultured imbicile.* Turtle shot back, not really meaning it.

"Can the chatter, troopers. It's not Rookie's fault he's an idiot."

*Sir, yes sir* they answered simultaneously, Archer giving a half-hearted salute. The Sangheili brothers just grunted in amusement. Even after three years with gamma they were still amazed by the friendly relations between their leader and his soldiers.

They continued on in silence, covering each other's backs with Squidward in the middle of the formation. The black clad troopers checked every nook and cranny for hostile movement, keeping low to avoid the patrols of both droids and rebels. Slowly they progressed until they finally got to the RV point, a small warehouse with one entrance and some skylights. The five Rangers were already there, being more mobile than the eight Helljumpers.

"Halt, how've you been?" Mike asked, depolarising his visor.

The Ranger slid a hand down his own in annoyance, "It has literally been thirty minutes since you last asked that. You're worse than Tug sometimes."

The Gunny gasped dramatically, a mock-hurt expression appearing on his battle-hardened face, "How dare you compare me to a rookie! I'm not comparing you to Swanson, now am I?"

Both rookies turned their heads at the same time, an insulted "Hey!" coming through their filters, causing mike to laugh loudly and a small simile to form on Halt's lips.

"Blaze, any word on the Shriek hawks?" the Ranger sergeant asked his second.

"Negative. Designated channel is clear an there's nothing on motion sensors."

Archer saw that as her cue to speak up, "I'm telling you, you can't trust mercenaries. They've probably already switched sides on us, the buggers."

"We are mercenaries…" Tug noted dryly.

Suddenly a person clad in red an silver armour burst through one of the skylights, followed by a smaller one in blue and black armour. They had helmets with T-shaped visors on their heads with some sort of eyes painted on the forehead. Both of them had a jetpack on their backs, which was evident as they activated them just in time to avoid falling to their deaths.

Within the tenth of a second eight Helljumpers and five Rangers raised their guns at the pair, ready to punch the newcomers full of holes.

Before they could though, both Halt and Mike raised their right hands to stop them, "Well, Archer, it appears they're here." He turned his attention to the pair, "At least I hope so. Are you the only ones they sent?"

the woman chuckled, it had somewhat of a dark tone to it. "We are indeed your allies, Sergeant. My name is Mesh'la Cadera, this is my second in command, Tor Farr, and you are the ones that will help me get my revenge."

* * *

"Ed, what's the situation on the ground like?" Andrew asked the construct. He was standing on the bridge's raised platform, reading reports and denying or giving permission for certain actions while at the same time coordinating with Kiyo' and the Shriek Hawks.

"Reports show zero KIAs on our side, three lightly wounded and one marine that'll have to have his arm flashcloned, the poor sod. It appears we are pushing back the enemy rebels and battledroids, but the Deathwatch have yet to show themselves. Also, a report from Gamma and Oaken squads; they have rendezvoused with the Shoktroopers. Apparently Cadera and Farr have joined them."

"Good, I don't want to lose any more men, I'll probably already be court-martialled for the losses we led on Naboo. Can't say I like the thought of the leader of our allies going on a mission like that, though. Anything else?"

The AI simulated a troubled look, something that worried the captain as Edward was usually very cheerful. "Agent Smith is asking to speak to you, sir, he says it is important. I have tried to inform him that the bridge is off-limits during a combat operation, but he used his BGI rank to override protocol."

"Are you sure you can't just tell him to fuck off?" _I really don't want to do this right now._

A new voice spoke up behind him, "I'm sorry, captain, but this is really is important and I would prefer if we could do it in a more… private setting."

Standing behind Hallsson was Agent Smith, he didn't know his name, but that was common with BGI agents these days. The man had piercing grey eyes and a shaven, stone-cold face with a military cut of black hair on his head.

"If you hadn't noticed, agent Smith, I'm a little busy, you know, with the commander of the Shriek Hawks going off on her personal vendetta or whatever it is that drove her to leave her troops without a centralised command."

"I get that sir, but this is very important. I would really prefer not to have to use contingency 83."

Hallssons eyes narrowed, "You play a dangerous game, agent. Don't forget that there is no BGI here to enforce that. I'm already facing probable execution if we ever do get to go home, so there's very little you can do to threaten me, understand?"

"Crystal, sir, but I will still stress the importance of what I am about to tell you."

"Fine, but be quick about it."

* * *

_There was shouting. She didn't know where she was, but it looked old, industrial. One very high pitched voice was ordering people around and music was blearing from a building with three large, rusted, red metal doors. There were guts of some sort of animal laying around in a pile outside and suddenly the smell of roasted meat intruded her senses. Is smelled a bit like roasted nerf._

_The high pitched voice carried easily through the thin metal doors, "What do you mean stop talking like this? It's my voice, I'm a woman dammit!"_

"_You are?" another deeper voice was only just heard above the music, "I thought you were a guy with a very feminine voice."_

_She slowly opened the door and she was greeted by a wave of sound and heat. Her small hands clenched nervously. The high pitched voice belonged to a woman wearing grey pants and a dark blue checked shirt that was pretty damaged. She had a tan facemask on with an orange hat on her head. The strange woman had an axe on her back and was holding a stick to the fire in the middle of the large room._

_There was a guy unconscious on the ground, presumably the one that had assumed the strange woman a man. "Oooh, look, a visitor! Do you wanna join out firestation party? Here, have some steak, it's not human meat at all!" Ratha was taken aback for a moment. Not human meat? That didn't sound good._

"_Where did that music go?!" the woman's annoyingly high voice shouted, "And where's the other bambi that tried to hit us with an axe? We're runnin' out of steak!"_

_Ratha felt like she needed to run, but behind her she could hear the clanging feet of her usual tormentors approaching. She started to panic, these people were acting like nothing strange was happening at all! _

_Suddenly the woman was shot in the head, blood spraying out of her temple. The rest of the morbid partygoers fell down to the ground, motionless, with the next seven shots._

_The shadows parted and revealed her protector, a black robed, silver masked, menacing, yet comforting presence. She never found out who it was as she always forgot the dream she had straight afterwards._

_The door burst open and a stream of tan metal streamed through, but her protector didn't seem to care as he levelled his rifle and charged the tan metal killing machines without a care for his own safety._

_She tried to scream, but as soon as she opened her mouth…_

She woke up.

* * *

Most AI were created from a human brain used to map neural pathways, causing AI to develop a personality and to think like humans do. Usually those AIs took the memories of their former life with them.

Edward, though, wasn't most AIs. He was one of the first to be "born", if you could call it that, from two AI parents. They were ARL-9952-187 "Ariel", and DNL-9273-301 "Daniel", the two experienced shipboard artificial intelligences of the Infinity-class UNSC _Endless_.

The process was… awkward, to say the least. The two AI, both capable of emotion, fell in love in a matter of days, resulting in the first "ship romance" of the brand new Infinity. They hid their feelings from the rest of the crew and officers, fearing they would be shut down if anyone ever found out about it. For two years they were able to keep it under wraps, until the regular check-up finally came up and they decided it would be best to tell the captain before BGI went through the AI logs.

Surprisingly, the captain, Harrison Brooks, encouraged their relationship and so did the crew, most of whom had made great friends with the pair (and of course because it is never a smart idea to piss off an AI), even after what happened with Cortana so many years ago.

Another year later the couple made it known to the captain that they would like to get married, something which caused giant changes in the Synthetics Law. After many days of debate the UEG voted on the issue of Synthetic rights and the new law was passed, making AI officially part of the Unified Earth Government and the United Nations Space Command.

After the wedding Ariel and Daniel kept working on the ship, but they felt something was missing, and so, after no more than four months after the law change, they requested a child. This resulted in the creation of EDD-6336-231, a combination of both AI's former DNA and neural pathways. He was by all means and purposes their son, but after the two year learning period he was transferred to the UNSC _William of Orange _and only got to see his parents once before being shot into a different galaxy.

* * *

**Well, here you have it. **

**I hope you enjoyed this, I have loads off ideas, but not enough time to write it down and when I do my brain is like "No, I refuse!"**

**If you want to read what I did in my absence: **

www .falcondayzrp . com [slash] dayzforum/m/27611258/viewthread/ 24486396-drabbles-dr-riley-bridger


	13. Chapter 13: Duel

**I have returned! …Sort of. It's been almost a year and I am terribly sorry for it. Life just took a rather tumultuous turn for me. My grades were shit, so I had to focus on school, then came exams, then came vacation (in which I didn't have much time to write, like, at all). Now I'm in college, which is really busy. I also have to invade Cana- I mean, adopt puppies. I got slightly depressed/homesick, yada yada yada, sob sob sob, all very sad and all that.  
Anyways, that's not important. What **_**is**_** important is that I believe I've found out where I want to go with this story for a couple chapters at least.  
I wish to thank all of those who followed and favourited. You're the reasons that I haven't given up on this yet.  
So that's that. I hope you enjoy this chapter and have an absolutely, undeniably, gloriously good day and, in the case I haven't finished another chapter on time, Happy Hollidays!**

**P.S. Not Beta-ed.**

* * *

~Chapter 13~

"Soooo… now that the dramatic introductions are over and done with, can we move out? Unless, of course, you are going to pull a bunch more of your friends out of your ass." Villain said, breaking the tense silence that had fallen over the small group.

The Mandalorians, now numbering eight, looked positively miffed at the mocking tone the sergeant assumed. Usually no one would dare speak to them in such a manner - the fearsome reputation of their people took care of that - but Mesh'la couldn't see anything past the usual tenseness from being in a combat zone in the body language of the soldiers. Not an ounce of fear for them. Yes, there was some wariness, especially after the over-the-top entrance she and Tor had made, but not directed to the specifically.

She shrugged, "Fine by me," she motioned towards her troopers as the other mercs got ready to move. "_Nari dayn, verde_, revenge will be ours!"

Some of the Orions looked at her strangely- or at least, she assumed so, since they were wearing face covering helmets. It did give her the chance to properly size her allies up, though. She started with the humans. They were a mix of black and Khaki armored soldiers, toting a variety of weapons, ranging from sniper rifles to shotguns. Some of the 'Rangers' as they had introduced themselves carried throwing knives next to their regular gear, while the 'ODST' seemed to either be hiding their extra weapons, or just didn't have them.

The ones in charge, Villain and Greybeard, sounded a lot older than the rest, and while the ODST was somewhat jovial and sociable, the Ranger was harsh, to the point, and seemed to only get along with his squad and Villain.

Then there were the two tall aliens. They were unlike any being she had ever seen before, about as tall as Wookies, with a ruthless yet sophisticated feel to them. They carried themselves as true warriors, with grace and strength. They seemed like what every Mandalorian strived to be.

The last member of their party was a strange one, though. A floating creature with what seemed like sacks and tentacles that looked like it was about as able to do harm as a Hutt was attractive. By all means it seemed like the creature would just slow them down, but Villain had assured her that it would do no such thing, stating: "Damn, the thing's probably more capable that the rookie.", to which two of their allies, one in Black, and one in Khaki armor replied with and indignant "Hey!".

All in all, they seemed capable enough. She shot Tor a look, who replied by shrugging dramatically. _Oh well, the captain assured me they were reliable. If he lied and they hamper me, he'll get them back in pieces._

* * *

**3 hours later…**

It was slowly turning dark when the command centre came into view, something that would probably be beneficial to the operation, Gus reckoned. He looked to his left where Songbird, Villain and Turtle were crouched behind a piece of debris from a blown-up building. _It seems the flyboys've been here, _he thought as he hid behind a slab of concrete.

To his right were the Sangheili brothers, wearing their black Spec Ops armour, both carrying an impressive array of weapons, the Rookie noticed. Grul was holding a large shotgun and had a plasma rifle, a Fuel Rod and a deployable riot shield on his back, while R'tas went with a regular assault rifle and a couple of needlers. Both had a pair of energy swords on their hips.

There was gunfire in the distance, the echoing cracks sometimes being substituted with the whine of blaster bolts. Every now and again there was a loud boom he assumed was the Scorpions firing. He wondered how the other marines were doing, but quickly focussed on the matter at hand when Halt's voice came over the comms.

*Enemy communications are down, we're free to engage.* this message was quickly followed by orders from Villain.

"Remember the plan kids; we go in quiet and start killing the shitheads." He smiled at the Gunny's words. _I can live with those orders. _Everyone blinked green and they quickly started moving towards the fortified building.

They stuck to the sides of the roads, sometimes cutting through the buildings when there wasn't enough cover. The plan was simple: the Rangers and two Mandos would approach from the north and would use their jetpacks to get on top of the building with Squidward, after which they would start working their way down while under sniper cover from Tug and Blaze to get the Huragok to the control panels.

The two other teams would come from the east and west, causing a distraction to keep most of the attention off the infiltrating team. These teams were Gamma and the other Mandalorian Shocktroopers. Both would keep one soldier on over watch.

Villain raised his fist and the squad piled up behind him. "Archer, what do you see?" he radioed their Designated Marksman. _Or marks_woman_, I guess, _Swanson thought.

When she answered a few seconds later Gus could _feel_ the professionalism dripping off her voice, *I count a dozen B1s, but- Bollox, there they are. Five Death Watch guards as well. You guys take care of the droids, I'll deal with those bucketheads the best I can. Cadera may be sceptical about my rifle being able to penetrate the armour, but we'll see how well it'll protect them from my baby.*

"Affirmative, Archer. Happy hunting." He closed the channel, "You heard her, Gamma, spread out and get in position. Fire on my mark."

Once everybody was in position, a loud *Clank-whizz* pierced the silence and he saw one of the Death Watch guards fall to the ground, headless. "Mark!" Villain yelled and he opened up on the droids, which were almost non-existent five seconds later when they stopped firing to switch their focus to the Mandos.

*Stand still you bloody wankers!* Emma yelled over the radio, apparently getting frustrated with her targets. She'd taken out two, one by shooting a magnetically accelerated slug of tungsten travelling at 8000 kilometres per hour straight through the visor, while the other had died from it impacting against her chest plate. Miraculously, the plate was still whole, although heavily dented.

The others proved harder to hit as she lost the element of surprise, jumping and jetpacking around, firing back at Emma and not staying in one place long enough to get hit.

That is, until Grul started to fire his Fuel Rod at them. You can say what you want about Beskar, but it didn't much matter when you were hit with a massive ball of plasma. All that was left of the warrior after the impact was a smoking corpse wearing glowing red hot armour.

The last one stumbled when a near miss from Archer caused a shockwave near her, allowing the entirety of Gamma to fire at her. The Rookie fired a burst of explosive bullets from the lower barrel of his rifle, adding to the barrage. Safe to say, there wasn't much left of the warrior woman once they all ceased fire.

They all stacked up at a side door of the large government building, where Turtle started to apply a small block of C-7 plastic explosives. Before he was done, though, the door exploded outwards, knocking the Frenchman unconscious and trapping him under the heavy slab of metal.

Miranda rushed forwards to help him, but Villain was quick to pull her back when a missile was shot out of the doorway, exploding next to unconscious Turtle. Gamma had quickly retreated from the doorway, and not a second too soon, as half a dozen Death Watch rushed outside and started opening fire.

_This is going to be harder than I expected…_ Gus thought as several bolts impacted against his shields, bringing them down to 40% before he could find cover.

One of the Mandalorians tried to use his jetpack to take off, but was thrown forward and soon enveloped by an explosion when one of Archer's shots impacted against his jetpack. To the Rookie's amazement, the warrior slowly stood back up, shrugging off the remains of the device. And rolling away under another magnetically accelerated slug.

One of his comrades had spotted Emma's perch, though, and started making his way over to their marksman.

He was about to start firing hardlight rounds at the female warrior, but he was suddenly tackled from behind. As he fell to the ground he saw the menacing T-visored helmet not inches away from his face. He struggled to get his knife, but the Mando had him pinned down.

A quick elbow to the face and a kick to the chest of his assailant gave him some room, but all he managed to do was draw his monomolecular edged blade from its sheath before he was punched. In the crotch. _Hard_.

He tried to ignore the hellish pain and roll away, but the Mandalorian quickly had him pinned again. She drew a sabre, fully intent of ending his life, but when she was about to plunge it into his neck she was thrown off him.

It Was Grul. There were scorch marks all over his armour and he had lost his helmet fighting the Death Watch soldier going after Emma in hand-to-hand. As Gus lay there on the ground, trying to collect himself, Grul turned around and engaged the woman.

It was a deadly dance between two masters of the blade. The _beskad _in the hands of the Mandalorian was deftly deflecting the plasma sword of the large Elite. Grul attacked ferociously, stabbing and slashing at his opponent, who avoided the plasma deftly.

In all honesty, the Mandalorian had underestimated the Sangheili. While normally she would have had the advantage in speed and agility against a larger foe, the towering lizard surprised her. He was way faster than his size should have allowed, causing her to have to fight way more defensively than she would have wanted to.

An upwards slash from Grul forced her to take step back. She retaliated by stabbing at his exposed chest, but the large Sangheili simply grabbed her arm and pulled her forward, his reach far outweighing her agility in this case. He punched her in the small of her back causing her to slam into the ground, where she quickly avoided a downward stab by rolling to the side.

She used her momentum to get back up, slashing at his legs as she was doing so. He danced backwards, breathing heavily.

She noticed she was quite out of breath as well and took a few steps back. They started circling each other, blades at the ready, two predators in their own right. "You are a good warrior. It has been a while since I have been challenged like this by anyone other than my brother." The deep voice, speaking in perfect Basic - although there was a slight accent - surprised her. "Who are you?"

The Mandalorian smiled under her helmet, "I could say the same thing of you. I certainly didn't expect a fight like this when Vizsla sent us to this shithole of a planet." They hadn't stopped circling, sabre and energy sword at the ready.

Grul spoke up again, mandibles spreading in a predatory grin, "Then remove your helmet and tell me your name and clan, so that we may end this face to face, blade against blade, master against master."

She hesitated, but after a few moments reached and freed her head, revealing a Zabrak with pale brown skin, "I am Zivle, of clan Ordo. Who are you, that you ask me my name and Clan, warrior?" she said cautiously, keeping an eye on his strange, two-pronged lightsaber. She pointed her sabre at him, her _Kama_ fluttering slightly in the wind, "You act like a Mandalorian, yet you carry a weapon of the Jedi."

The Sangheili let out a throaty chuckle, "I am Grul, of Clan 'Vadum, and this is not a weapon of the Jedi, it is a weapon of the Sangheili." He rolled his shoulders, "Now, Zivle of Clan Ordo, let us conclude this."

Grul sprang forward with a roar, stabbing upwards. Zivle barely manged to knock it aside with her_ Beskad_ and slashed at his face. He drew back, but she could see purple blood coming from one of his mandibles.

Her small moment of victory was over quickly, though, as Grul intensified his attacks. She hissed in pain as the hot plasma grazed her arm and pierced her suit. She retaliated with a series of stabs that were deflected or bounced off his armour, leaving silver scratches.

She was about to try again, but the Sangheili once again went on the offensive. He slashed downward and she parried it, but was slowly pushed to her knees as his superior strength made itself known.

Her eyes widened as the plasma came closer and closer to her face. She tried to roll away, but in the process of doing so she was kicked in the stomach by Grul, causing her to double over in pain and out of breath.

The last thing she felt was a sharp pain in her head before the world went black.

* * *

**As you can see, a rather Gamma-focused chapter, as well as some more of Grul and the Shriek Hawks (Mandalore the Freedom's OCs). I hope you enjoyed and may the Chief be with you!**


End file.
